


The Day Of Wrath

by Broba



Category: Doctor Who, Homestuck, Sherlock (TV), Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Crossover, Other, Science Fiction, Space Flight, Space Opera, Time Travel, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-06-04
Updated: 2012-08-13
Packaged: 2017-11-06 20:00:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 24,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/422660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Broba/pseuds/Broba
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is my 50th fill! It is a celebration. I decided to go all out for this one. I am going to put in everything. ALL THE THINGS. This is one which will take time to unfold, I have a lot of planning, a lot of pieces to put together. I wanted to try something really ambitious to mark my 50th story, just because I am romantic like that. I feel like I've got so much out of it, and the fandom has been so kind to me, I want to really try and just produce something mental and crazed for them!</p>
<p>And yes, I know I still have things to finish, I haven't forgotten! This story is going to just jam together everything I like. I think... it will work. I hope! No explanation, no spoilers, just jump in and see dammit!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part One

_Certain events in this story take place directly after the earlier story “Magnificence.”_  
 ** _  
THE DAY OF WRATH  
  
DAY ONE _**  
  
  
London. Earth. A city at the centre of tomorrow. Slate grey clouds scudded greasily over the expansive visa of the city, the dome of St. Pauls' shrank fearfully beneath the less pious monuments to greed and expansion souring ever higher around the banks and international conglomerates. Far from the modern and gleaming edifices of the business district, the square mile known world wide simply as “The City,” a slightly ramshackle flat above a cafeteria nestled on Baker street. The city was quiet, subdued. The rain was light but insistent, and drove all but the most determined indoors to sulk in specifically British misery.  
  
A lone figure strode briskly down the street heedless of the rain. He paused only to glance up and down the road, and to consult a piece of paper he pulled from his leather jacket, frowning. He got his bearings and walked towards the cafeteria, pausing to ask a few questions of the owner. An observer from outside would have seen him smile disarmingly and exchange a few words, pointing upwards expectantly. The girl behind the bar smiled and nodded, he had found the right place. The man thanked her profusely and shook her hand, which got a further smile out of her. He was tall and lean, with a face that looked carved and hewn rather then grown, all angles and lines. He ran his hand through short cropped hair shaved close to his skull and stepped out into the rain again. This time he walked around behind the cafeteria and mounted the stairs to the flat above.  
  
Behind the door of number 221b, the world's greatest and to date only consulting detective paced restlessly, while his friend pretended to be interested in the news. In fact his friend was paying close attention, but was making a show of being engrossed in the newspaper he was holding.  
  
Sherlock Holmes stroked a finger along the bridge of his nose and stared fitfully out of the window. He was holding the bow of his violin but had left the instrument somewhere and forgotten about it. He was unable to play when such a mood took him. The window drummed gently with rain and Holmes smiled thinly.  
“I know you aren't actually reading anything.”  
John Watson glanced down and turned a page, coughing gently. “Yes I am, as it happens.”  
Holmes span on his heel and pointed at Watson with the bow, “it takes you no more then three and a half minutes to read one side of a tabloid sheet, and you haven't turned a page in more then ten.”  
“You've been counting?”  
“I always do.”  
“Wrong actually, I was thinking about the crossword.”  
“That's on page seventeen, you are only up to page twelve.”  
Of course. He didn't only count how long Watson was reading for, he took note of the page number. Typical. Watson sighed and folded the paper away.  
“All right. I'll ask. What's the matter?”  
“I'm bored!”  
“Do you need me to call an ambulance?” Watson replied sarcastically, “I didn't realise how desperate the situation was.”  
“John. I can't go on like this. If you were starving then you'd find something to eat. My brain is starving John. It's just as serious.”  
“Why not think of this as a bit of a holiday?”  
Holmes shot him a truly withering look.  
“Sorry,” John rejoindered with a sigh, “silly me. I should have thought. How inconsiderate. Tea?”  
“Fine,” said Holmes, in almost a snarl.  
  
Holmes resumed his position at the window, staring hawk-like into the street below and pondering whether the rain might bring out a nice juicy murder or two. Over the clink of John's spoon against the mug he insisted on drinking out of, Holmes heard a rap at the door. He strode across the floor and seized it open in a flash, while Watson stood at the entryway to the kitchen and looked over curiously.  
  
“Hello,” said the man stood at Holmes' door, smiling broadly, “I'm-”  
“Wet!” Said Holmes, “come in!”  
The visitor found himself practically dragged into the flat and planted on a chair while Holmes circled him furiously, looking him up and down.  
“Ah, I was about to say, I'm-”  
“Be quiet,” snapped Holmes, “don't move.”  
The man didn't move. Whatever Holmes was doing, he finished doing it. Across the room Watson gave a slightly sheepish little wave and mouthed the words “don't worry” silently.  
“Is something the matter?” The man looked up at Holmes with a wide, open expression.  
“Your shoulders are wet where you have been walking into the rain, I see.”  
“Yes?”  
“But only on one side. You walked along Baker street in one direction only- to here- but you weren't in the rain before that.” Holmes pointed at the man's right hand, indicating the space between finger and thumb, “you're right-handed I see. But you don't drive,” Holmes tilted his head on one side and squinted, “nor did you take a cab, and an umbrella would have kept your head dry. Am I to believe you simply appeared on Baker street and walked up here?”  
“Maybe I was waiting for the rain to pass, in a shop?”  
Holmes looked at him, running his eyes over the man, “no. You're not carrying any money, for one thing. You came here with one purpose and one only.”  
  
Holmes turned and strode over to the dumbfounded Watson who mutely handed him a cup of tea. He sipped from the cup and gave Watson a conspiratorial wink before turning back to the strange man who just sat there.  
“You might be interesting. Why are you here?”  
The man grinned. “I need the world's greatest consulting detective.”  
Holmes raised an eyebrow, “and who told you that he lived here?”  
He just shrugged, “word gets around, in time.”  
“I'm not for hire. I only accept cases that interest me. I will not abide being bored, no matter how much you're about to offer.”  
Watson frowned and muttered to Holmes, “you said he wasn't carrying any money?”  
“You came here with an offer though, didn't you?” Holmes smiled thinly.  
“Yes!” The odd man beamed and stood up, extending a hand amiably, “I'm offering you the chance to see something you've never seen before.”  
“What is it?”  
“Something fantastic!”  
Watson chuckled, “you'll be lucky, I think Holmes has seen it all.”  
“Not even close.”  
Holmes clucked his tongue, “you're serious. All right, I'm interested. Start at the beginning, who are you?”  
“I'm the Doctor.”  
  
Holmes raised an eyebrow, but it was far from unusual for clients to arrive under an assumed name  
and he decided not to press the point at first. The three of them sat down at the kitchen table and Watson made another cup of tea for their visitor, as he began to explain himself.  
“I found something, and I need to know where it came from, and who sent it. I need to stop it.”  
“Something?” Holmes stared at him over the rim of his cup. As the Doctor spoke he would occasionally interject, clarifying a point or demanding further information, usually in the form of terse single worded interjections.  
“It's a signal, containing a computer code, and it's dangerous. Possibly the most dangerous piece of software anywhere, and if it's used then it could mean the end of everything.”  
“Everything?”  
“Everything. Shoes. Houses. Little red cars. The Atlantic ocean. Everything in the entire world is in grave danger at this moment.”  
“You expect me to believe that?”  
“No,” the Doctor smiled, “but I expect that you'd know if I was lying to you.”  
Holmes narrowed his eyes thoughtfully, “do go on, Doctor.”  
“The signal is a self-compiling execution set. Once it starts running, then it builds itself out of its' own pieces. It's like a fire that begins with the slightest spark and starts to grown, until it can consume everything.”  
Watson looked from one to the other, “we're not really in the business of computers, and if it's so important haven't you gone to the authorities?”  
“They aren't qualified to deal with this.”  
“I suppose you are?”  
“I can deactivate the code, I think, but I need to find out who has it. And I need to find out who sent it to them, and stop them doing it again.”  
“Excuse me,” Watson leaned forward and frowned in confusion, “but this is ridiculous. How is some computer program going to put the world in danger? How are we supposed to do anything about it?” He didn't like how quiet Holmes had become, it was starting to worry him.  
The Doctor looked at Watson and, it seemed, stared straight through him. “John,”  
“I, ah, I never told you my-”  
“Doctor John Watson, listen to me now. When I tell you that everything you ever held dear and loved is about to be destroyed I wasn't trying to make you afraid, I was just being truthful because I want you to know what is about to happen if we all don't stop it. I need both of you to help me and if I had any way, any way to keep you and everyone else on this planet completely out of it I would. But I can't!”  
Watson went quiet. He was obviously starting to think this man was insane, and possibly dangerous. For his part, Holmes was intrigued, in the single-minded intensely focussed way of his.  
“Give me all the information that you have,” he said, snapping his fingers testily, “no more delaying, all of it.”  
  
The Doctor pulled an envelope out of his coat and slid it across the table.  
“One week ago a factory in Germany started churning these out for distribution. I managed to shut it down before too many got out, I think, but there were no records, no ledgers, nothing to say what customer had placed the order for them.”  
Holmes carefully opened the stiff envelope and removed a disc. On the upper surface it bore a logo, a stylised green house like a child's drawing, made of squares with a triangle roof against a white background.  
“What is it?”  
“I think,” said the Doctor, “it's a game.”


	2. Part Two

_**DAY TWO**_  
  
  
Somewhere. Across the galaxy, and accelerating ferociously. A great vessel speared the dark, her curving and sculpted form accentuated the sense of speed and power that infused her. Bright running lights flickered in the dark and illuminated the name and number picked out in enormous black letters across the apron of her foresection. The pinnacle of human thought and engineering, she was effortlessly immense and supreme in her class.  
  
The night shift was on watch, although the idea of day and night were arbitrary abstractions in the void of space. Nonetheless, the ship operate don a strict day\night cycle for the benefit of her crew, and the captain was roused from his sleep by an urgent chime from the computer.  
“Lights!” He snapped irritably as he sat up in bed and rubbed the bridge of his nose wearily, “what is it?”  
The room was immediately illuminated by soft hidden sources of light and a voice from midair answered the captain's query.  
“Bridge here, sir. You have a priority transmission.”  
“What level priority?”  
The bridge officer told him. The captain rose and went to his desk immediately, knotting his dressing gown about his waist in a hurry. He tapped his workstation impatiently and the screen lit up.  
“I'll take it in here, mister. Maintain course and heading.”  
“Aye sir.”  
  
The screen activated with a chirp as the transmission was routed through from the bridge, displaying the familiar blue and white insignia of the United Federation of Planets. The captain rubbed his eyes once and tapped the console again to indicate his readiness.  
“Picard here.”  
The screen cut to an image of a Starfleet admiral in her office, who smiled at him.  
“Jean-Luc. I see I found you at an inconvenient time.”  
Picard glanced down at his gown and chuckled softly, “I think I can make the time for the highest ranking admiral in Starfleet. It's good to hear from you Kathryn.”  
Admiral Janeway nodded, “I wish I could say it was just a social call Jean-Luc, but as you can imagine I wouldn't be talking to you like this without a good reason.”  
Picard frowned and nodded, “what are your orders admiral?”  
“Jean-Luc, what I am about to tell you is to be considered a briefing that is command-level classified.”  
“Understood.”  
  
Janeway's face gave way to a star map, a standard diagrammatic showing a region of space light-years distant, far from any current Starfleet activities.  
“The Angitani Cluster,” mused Picard, “I wasn't aware that we had any assets there.”  
“We don't, not yet, which is why I'm ordering the _Enterprise_ to change course immediately.”  
“Has something happened?”  
“Approximately sixty hours ago long range Federation com-stat arrays detected an enormous burst of energy, it was like nothing we've ever seen before. We took the extraordinary step of comparing results with our opposite numbers among the Romulans before we could believe it.”  
  
In the centre of the Angitani Cluster the computer indicated a point where a sudden energy spike that dwarfed the output of the nearby starts appeared. As the readout moved forwards in time a globe of energy spread out at lightspeed.  
“This event is far from our furthers outpost, and the energy is diffusing in all directions, surely by  the time the wave-front reached us is would be too weak to present a danger to the Federation?”  
“Very good Jean-Luc. However we have reason to believe that the energy output is coherent.”  
“A coherent energy pulse?”  
“Yes.”  
“Could that occur naturally?”  
“Almost certainly not. What we, and the best minds of the Romulan high council of science, believe is that this outburst is the result of intelligent activity.”  
Picard studied the recorded energy levels and stroked his hand over his head thoughtfully. “Even the Borg...”  
“We've never encountered anything that can produce such an effect. If this is a new civilisation making itself known, then we need to establish who they are... and what they might want.”  
“How are the Romulans reacting? The Klingons?”  
“The Klingons are making ready for war, of course, but they don't have the resources to mount a meaningful expedition at present. The Romulans are as curious as we are, but they aren't doing anything yet, as far as we know.”  
“They want to see what happens to us.”  
“Probably. What do you think, Jean-Luc?”  
“Well admiral,” Picard smiled, “as far as I'm aware, our remit here is to seek out intelligent life, and it would seem that intelligent life just sent up a signal flare. The least we can do is say hello.”  
“Be careful, and observe all first contact priorities. That is, of course, if we haven't just witnessed a civilisation destroying itself.”  
“Is that likely? Surely an intelligence capable of creating an energy burst of this kind must have overcome the usual impulses to barbarity and violence just to reach that level of development?”  
“You're an optimist, Jean-Luc. That's why I'm sending you.”  
“And if the optimism is misplaced?”  
“That's why I'm sending the _Enterprise_. If they want to engage us in diplomacy you're to explore every avenue, but if that proves impossible then at least we are opening with a show of strength.”  
“Kathryn, you must realise, that if we are viewing the results of some kind of weapon then they are in control of forces that make the _Enterprise_ insignificant.”  
Janeway looked pained for a moment, and nodded. “Be careful, Jean-Luc.”  
“Understood. Picard out.”  
  
Picard went to the replicator to order a cup of his favourite Earl Grey tea before dressing. As soon as the briefing had concluded he had ordered the _Enterprise_ to make best speed for the Angitani Cluster and now stars slid past his view like glittering motes in a sunbeam stretched out to infinity. A new civilisation, one which was capable of harnessing such energies- despite the obvious danger, and the attendant fear, it was impossible for him not to feel excited by the prospect.  
  
The Angitani Cluster spread across a slender hundred or so light years of space, a splash of stars across the endless black backdrop of the universe. As the _Enterprise_ approached, the source of the energy readings was immediately evident. The visible light from the energy pulse was long gone, but the ship's sensors clearly pinpointed a narrow zone from which a constant and intense stream of radiation still emanated. As they drew closer, the sensors were able to pinpoint a specific planetary system. In fact, it the system was the centre of a bulls-eye of devastation that spread out in a perfect globe or ravening energies spreading in a light-speed storm front of destruction.  
  
Picard approached the bridge viewscreen and placed a hand on the shoulder of his android lieutenant-commander.  
“Data, what do you make of it?”  
“the energy anomaly has spread out in a perfect sphere, the distribution is highly uniform and out readings confirm the energy coherence. This would certainly appear to be the result of some kind of intelligence and not a natural phenomenon.”  
“What is the danger to the ship?”  
“At warp speed we are able to keep in front of the energy front as it approaches us, however attempting to pass through it may be dangerous.”  
“Options?”  
Data considered this for a moment, frowning. “The coherence of the energy is such that we could tune our shield frequency to a perfect anti-resonance frequency to disperse the energy as it impacts them.”  
“Will it work?”  
“It is impossible at this time to give an accurate probability of success,” replied Data passively, “however if the anti-resonance is tuned perfectly then theoretically we will pass through the energy front without damage.”  
Picard glanced over at his Number One, who raised an eyebrow. He nodded, “make it so.”  
  
The _Enterprise_ confronted an invisible, lethal storm of energy as the shields were made ready. In the heart of her mighty engines incomprehensible forces churned and roiled, and the paper-thin bubble shield protecting her winked into existence. The energy anomaly washed over them and the shields crackled into life instantly as they interacted with the titanic forces that had been unleashed. The ship seemed to buck as feedback from the shields into the superstructure of the hull was translated into kinetic turbulence that the inertial dampening system had difficulty dispersing. Lights flashed alarmingly across the bridge stations and klaxons sounded alerts from various systems. At his command seat Picard clung grimly to the armrests and watched the unfolding maelstrom on the bridge display. The ship groaned mightily and seemed about to shear in half from the forces, when suddenly the energy had passed around and over them and they were through.  
  
Riker was the first to shout, “Report!”  
“No hull breaches,” said Data smoothly, “the shields held, and we are out of immediate danger, damage reported to subsystems on three decks. Subordinate phaser stations two and nine are overloaded,”  
Worf checked over the weapons and defensive systems professionally, “main weapons still operative, we have limited scanning range and shields are at twenty percent of full capacity.”  
Picard looked at Riker and let out a relieved sigh, “I think we made it, Number One,”  
“This time,” he replied, “let's try not to do that again in a hurry, though.”  
“Full sensor sweep, as soon as we have full system restoration,” said Picard, “I want to know what the hell is out there.”  
  
The _Enterprise_ closed on a single world, in a system that had been pinpointed as the exact epicentre of the blast. There was only one body orbiting the primary star. It was a grey blank rock in space, devoid of activity.  
“The world has very recently been struck by a global meteorite shower,” announced Data, “sensors would appear to indicate that practically the entire surface of the world was devastated as a result.”  
“How is that possible?”  
“The chances of so many meteorite impacts occurring simultaneously are infinitesimal, sir.”  
“Is this related to the energy anomaly?”  
“That would seem to be a logical assumption sir. Certainly if the devastation on the planet was intentional, then it would be well within the ability of the creators of the energy anomaly to accomplish.”  
Picard frowned, staring at a barren world that had been simply wiped clean. There were two moons still orbiting, one was a lurid green in colour while the other was a shocking violet.  
“Just what happened here? Was this a civilisation?” He whispered almost under his breath.  
“Unknown, sir. There is no current indication of life on the planet.”  
  
Picard turned away and was about to speak when Data interrupted him.  
“Sir! I have an energy reading on the planet, and there appears to be a life form present.”  
“Why didn't you see it before?”  
“The reading was not there before sir. It has appeared without apparent cause.”  
Picard looked up at Worf, who nodded grimly. “Sir. One moment there was nothing and then... something is there.”  
“A transporter?”  
“No sir, the readings do not indicate that,” Worf looked perplexed, “it is strange but...”  
“What?”  
“It is as commander Data said, sir. One moment nothing, and then there was a reading. But, if the sensors are correct,”  
“Yes?”  
“They suggest that a structure is now present, and that it always has been. But it was not there!”  
  
Picard nodded and came to a decision. He adjusted the front of his uniform with a brief tug and spoke to Riker.  
“We need more information and we won't get it up here. Take an away team to the structure Mister Data located, be careful.”  
Riker nodded and went to the turbolift, “Worf, Data, with me.” He tapped his communicator, “Doctor Crusher, meet us at transporter room one.”  
  
  
The surface of the world was as grey and unrelenting as it had appeared from orbit. With a shimmering of a transporter beam the away team appeared at the crest of a rocky rise commanding a view over a lengthy plain of rock and ash. Data began taking readings with a tricorder and spoke up above the rising sound of wind.  
“The air will remain breathable for the foreseeable future, but there may still be pockets of noxious gas.”  
“Is that consistent with a meteor strike of this magnitude, Data?” Riker was looking around to the distance.  
“There has been no recorded meteor strike of this magnitude sir, however it would appear not. Considering the devastation that would have been caused, the atmosphere should have been stripped away entirely.”  
“Perhaps there were defences in place?” Worf said gruffly.  
“I do not believe so, Mister Worf. The environment is consistent with an organised distribution of relatively low impact strikes.”  
Riker shook his head, “what does it mean Data?”  
“I would suggest that the meteorites did not strike at all, but were effectively placed in position accurately with consideration for the environmental conditions afterwards.”  
“Some kind of terraforming?”  
“Perhaps, sir.”  
“That's a little extreme. I think-”  
“Look!” Doctor Crusher pointed at something below them amid the rocks and scree, and the party made their way down.  
  
The structure they discovered seemed more out of place then anything imaginable, and yet to all of their sensor readings it had always stood there. Everything they could detect about it suggested that it had existed rooted to the spot undisturbed for an indeterminate amount of time and yet their ship's systems had seen it appear out of nowhere. Riker looked up at it and pointed out some writing picked out in English.  
“Just what the hell is a 'Police Box?'”


	3. Part Three

Düsseldorf, Earth. The sky was a similar gray to that of London, there was a smattering of rain. Inside a music production company factory the noise of rain drumming on the high windows was interrupted by a deep sussurating groan that permeated the building, as the TARDIS materialised in the middle of the workshop floor.  
  
The door opened and the Doctor stepped out, turning and spreading his arms with a grin.  
“As promised- Germany! Just a short hop, no problem at all.”  
“This is astounding,” whispered Watson as he stepped out of the TARDIS and looked around, “I mean, this is impossible.”  
“Clearly not,” remarked Holmes, looking around. “I find it difficult to believe, yes, but the options presented to me are either to believe the impossible or to doubt my own mind. Either way, all we can logically do is proceed and accept what we are seeing, for now.”  
  
The TARDIS had shaken Watson to the core, while Holmes was loving every moment. He had gone silent when the Doctor had introduced them to the machine, and had wandered about the control room as if in a daze. The Doctor and John had waited patiently for Holmes to come to terms with it. In the end he had simply turned to the Doctor and indicated the central control console with a gesture.  
“Clearly at least six people are meant to operate this.”  
The Doctor just grinned.  
  
They were alone in the factory. The machinery was almost entirely automated, and could produce any required disc to specification for shipping anywhere in the world. It was a marvel of efficient German design, intended to supply orders as they were required on demand. The factory had produced a crate of the game discs which had been loaded onto a pallet of deliveries along with various other orders before the Doctor had found it and stopped the process, and at least a thousand of them were out in the world somewhere.  
“But you said this is a time machine,” protested Watson, “why not just go back and stop any of it happening?”  
Holmes watched the Doctor closely, waiting for the answer.  
“When I arrived here I became part of the sequence of events,” replied the Doctor, “now I can't interfere with earlier events in the chain of events leading up to this.”  
“Why not?” Asked Holmes.  
“It would be a very bad thing,” warned the Doctor darkly, before perking up. “Come on! Over here.”  
  
Watson shared a look with Holmes, who stared at him for a moment and shook his head once. They walked after the Doctor. They were led to the central administrative office for the factory. A human overseer would arrive daily to check on figures and tend to the necessary administrative tasks of the factory but otherwise there was barely any interaction from living people, the factory would quite happily operate unaided until instructed to do otherwise.  
  
Holmes immediately sat down at the desk and steepled his fingers, looking around him, while Watson stood at the door looking around pensively and the Doctor waited. After a time, the Doctor leaned over to whisper at Watson.  
“Is he always like this?”  
“Like what?”  
“Well, he's just sitting there.”  
“Give him a moment, he's solving the case.”  
“He doesn't even know what we're looking for, though.”  
“Mm.”  
“What does he think he's going to do?”  
“Just wait, he'll tell us if he needs anything.”  
“I'm just curious, I've heard all about the great Sherlock Holmes, I always meant to visit.”  
Watson paused and looked at him, “is this what you do? Just wander around?”  
“Mostly.”  
“You sound like a tourist, Doctor.”  
The Doctor smirked, “yeah. I suppose so!”  
“So where do you actually live then? I mean, are you from thousands of years in the future or something, is that it?”  
“I always say, home is where you hang your hat.”  
“Don't worry, I won't pry. I was just-”  
“John! Doctor!” Sherlock snapped, without looking over, “if you insist on this inane chatter might I suggest you do it elsewhere, you're quite distracting.”  
The Doctor raised his eyebrows and jerked his head in the direction of the door. They were about to leave, when Holmes held up a hand. “Wait.”  
  
Holmes hadn't touched anything on the desk when the others gathered around him, he hadn't so much as disturbed a sheet of paper, but he reached out for a file as confidently as if he had worked there himself and opened it. There was only one sheet of paper within the file, and he read down the list of numbers, tapping the bottom of the page with his finger.  
“Here's your mysterious customer who ordered these discs.”  
The Doctor frowned, “hang on, I can work this out give me a second.”  
Holmes swivelled in the chair and grinned, “don't bother, I'll explain...”  
  
When Holmes had examined the disc that the Doctor had given him he'd noted the tiny cramped writing stencilled around the inner edge, specifically the numeral indicating the area of the globe that the disc was intended for. Data discs were not always specific to a region, he explained, but music discs were and this one had been stamped on master blanks that were intended specifically for the North American market. Holmes had been staring at the desk as he mentally worked his way through the kind of filing system that was in use. The Doctor had stopped the operation almost as soon as it had begin, which indicated to Holmes that the order must have been a very recent one. He saw twelve files on a shelf marked 'bestellungen: region ein,' one for each month of the year, and counted across to the current month. As luck would have it there had only been enough orders to North America for a single sheet of paper so far that year, and only one order that was not specifically associated with a music company. Holmes tapped the name of the customer with a fingertip, meaningfully, and the Doctor read it out.  
“Crocker corporation?”  
Holmes looked at him and nodded. The Doctor frowned and set his jaw. “That's fantastic, you're everything I hoped, thanks. I'll take you back. I have another journey I have to make.”  
Holmes stood up sharply, “you think that's the end of it? This is only just starting to get me interested.”  
“Sherlock,” said Watson quietly, “I think we should just leave this one.”  
The Doctor nodded, “it really might get dangerous, and I don't need to get anyone involved.”  
“We're involved,” said Holmes firmly, “and if what you say is true, the world might well be in danger, yes? I'm hardly going to just sit at home through that, I'd be bored to death.”  
The Doctor grinned, “Watson?”  
“Well. If he's going, I suppose I am too.”  
“Fantastic!”  
  
On the distant world of Alternia, the away team of the starship _Enterprise_   took position around the door to the TARDIS. Riker had read out the seemingly nonsensical sign by the door, but there was no explanation why such an object, obviously an artefact of human culture, would end up here of all places. Suddenly the door opened a crack, with an ominous creak. Riker glanced behind him, and saw Worf already had his phaser trained on the door. Riker held up a hand and took a step back.  
“Easy, don't make any sudden movements. We're here to make contact.”  
Worf glanced at him, but nodded curtly, “understood.”  
  
The door to the TARDIS opened wide and a man emerged. He looked entirely insouciant and relaxed, in a slightly rumpled pinstripe suit under a long brown coat with his hands jammed into his pockets. He had a spiked quiff of hair rushing up from his forehead and wore a black-rimmed pair of glasses, which only seemed to accentuate his slightly wide-eyed and childlike expression of curiosity.  
“Hello,” he said with a smile, “I'm the Doctor.”  
  
If the members of the away team were taken aback, they reacted with calm professionalism.   
“Commander William Riker, USS _Enterprise_.”  
The Doctor extended a hand and gave Riker a vigorous handshake. “Marvellous! The United Federation of Planets, of course! I always meant to visit, I've heard good things.  We-e-ell, mostly. I suppose you're about to ask me. This is a bit far from your territory though, isn't it?”  
“We're here investigating an unusual energy anomaly. I don't suppose you'd know anything about that?”  
The Doctor took a few steps around the TARDIS in a circle, he licked a fingertip and held it up in the air, counting under his breath. He nudged a few rocks with his toe and examined them closely. The others followed cautiously, watching him.  
“As it happens,” said the Doctor chattily, “I'm here for the same reason you are, to find out exactly what's going on here.”  
Riker tapped Doctor Crusher on the arm and glanced at the Doctor. She nodded and began quietly scanning him.  
“Doctor, we'll have to ask you to answer our questions,” continued Riker, “you appear to be a human, and your... structure there has human writing on it.”  
“Ah. Yes well I always meant to repair the chameleon circuit,” the Doctor ran a hand through his hair, “nearly managed it once or twice, too. At this point, I think she just prefers being a blue box.”  
Riker grimaced, getting the feeling that he was being strung along. He placed a hand on the Doctor's shoulder a little firmly, “I'm going to have to ask you to answer our questions. Please.”  
The Doctor straightened up and fixed Riker with what was suddenly a very intense, and very knowing stare. “Commander Riker,” he began, “I can honestly say that I am about to say something that I've always wanted to say and never really had a chance to before.”  
“Yes?”  
The Doctor grinned, “take me to your leader.”  
  
In the meeting room of the _Enterprise_ , an hour later, the Doctor was pacing fitfully in front of the wide vista of windows occupying one wall. The TARDIS had been beamed up to a cargo hold, and the Doctor couldn't stop himself worrying about it. He kept muttering how being transported would confuse her.  
“Doctor, “ said Picard patiently, “are you suggesting that this is all happening because of a game?”  
“I've told you everything I can,” said the Doctor, “it's not just any ordinary game. It's a very special, very dangerous game. You've already seen what it's done to Alternia, and this is only the beginning.”  
“I don't understand,” said Doctor Crusher, “what would be the point of a game that kills everyone who plays it?”  
“The game exists for one purpose only- to reproduce itself at a point in time before it destroys itself.”  
Doctor Crusher looked nonplussed, Data interjected. “you are describing a system which non-causally creates itself. That would seem to indicate a paradox, Doctor.”  
“Yes, but only from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint. In fact, the truth is a lot more,” he groped for words, “timey-wimey.”  
Data nodded politely, “fascinating.”  
“Look, here, I'll explain.”   
  
The Doctor began emptying his pockets, placing random items on the table. A thimble, a button, a few coins, and a self-sealing stem bolt. He arranged them in a haphazard line.  
“Imagine these are all events which happen in time. Here's the beginning of the game, here's the end of the game, here's where the game is written,” he moved them around one after the other. “All that matters is that they all happen, they are linked to one another only in a general sense, outside of time. So long as these events all occur then the game can exist, regardless of what order they happen in. So here, at the beginning from our point of view, the game begins. And here, during the course of playing, the game itself is created for the first time, and the code is sent back in time-”  
“It is impossible to-” Data began, but the Doctor hushed him with a sharp gesture.  
“What happened here on Alternia is part of the game's progress, somewhere in the middle. In fact the game itself hasn't been created, but part of the process that the players go through will create the conditions that allow the game to be played in the first place.”  
“Doctor this is incredible,” said Picard diplomatically, “but it seems paradoxical. How did the game begin originally?”  
“It didn't have to. I mean, it no longer requires a starting point fixed in time for the other conditions that create the game to happen. It's become a loop that is it's own starting and end points.”  
Data nodded, “such as a Möbius strip?”  
“Yes, I suppose you could call it that. I prefer to say that it's a great big ball of timey-wimey stuff.”  
“How did you come to know all this Doctor?” Picard leaned forwards, “you'll excuse me for wondering exactly what your personal connection to this game is, if all you say is true.”  
For once, the Doctor seemed a little lost for words. “That's the thing, I'm not really sure.” He looked out at the stars, trying to find the words to explain the unique sensation of knowing one's own personal history is in flux, and being aware of every moment of it in a way that only a Time Lord can. “I think I have been a part of this before, somehow.”  
  
There was quiet in the briefing room. Riker was about to speak but Picard gave him a look. They waited for the Doctor to speak.  
“I told you that the game doesn't need to happen in order, the pieces can be scattered through time. I can feel the pieces appearing in the past- I mean, in my own past, and changing things. New memories are coming by the moment.” He turned and smiled wearily, “you're right though, it is a paradox. Things are happening now which are affecting the past, and things are happening then which haven't yet occurred.”  
  
He was interrupted by an alarm which shrieked through the ship, as red alert warnings flashed onto every screen simultaneously. Picard nodded to his officers and they all stood. “This is all very interesting Doctor but our conversation will have to wait. Please stay here.”  
  
The Doctor made a vague promise to stay put that he had absolutely no intention of keeping,  and when the others had left he went to the computer display interface and took out his screwdriver. The bridge crew made their way to their stations and Picard demanded a report immediately.  
“Sensors report a small spacial anomaly sixteen thousand kilometres away. Multiple incoming sensor contacts, unlike any vessels in the Federation database,” said Data smoothly, “all converging on the planet below. Sensors report active weapons across all contacts.”  
“Shields?” Riker looked up at the weapons station, and Worf nodded. As soon as the red alert was sounded they had been raised.  
“Shields are back to full capacity sir, weapons on your mark,” the big Klingon reported.  
“On-screen,” Picard nodded. “What are they and where did they come from?”  
“The vessels appear to have appeared out of the anomaly, which appears to be similar in arrangement to a Borg transwarp conduit.”  
“How many?”  
“I am ready approximately eight hundred individual readings.”  
Picard pursed his lips. “Merde.”  
  
Across the expanse of space an army was converging. They poured out of their space-bridge into the location that the unique energies had emanated from, intent on capturing the source of it and deploying it for their own purposes. The anomaly represented a source of power that could permanently alter the face of a war.   
  
No two of the vessels were quite alike, they were a mixture of almost random shapes and devices mashed together in weird and fantastical forms, and they bristled with weapons. None of the ships made the slightest concession to the comfort of their crew for the simple reason that each ship was it's own crew. Across their communication bands endless streams of chatter passed between them in a guttural, inhuman dialect.  
  
 _We have found the source of the energy pulse.  
  
There are no vessels present to oppose us!  
  
Have these people destroyed themselves? No matter, we take what is left!  
  
Wait- there is one vessel. A space warship! Enormous!  
  
Attack. Rip it to pieces and take the weapon.  
  
Hail Megatron!_


	4. Part Four

_This section takes place directly following the events of "Magnificence"  
  
 **DAY THREE**_  
  
  
Following the destruction of Alternia, the game began in earnest when players entered their session medium and began the journey that would eventually lead to the creation of the very circumstances that had driven them from their world.  
  
Circling and wheeling through the void of the medium, a specific meteor laboratory made a refuge for a group who had fled the destruction, the game and finally the scratch event that had, to their knowledge, ended everything.  
  
At his husktop, Karkat Vantas worked feverishly. He had a debt to repay, and he had a way at last of doing it. He had met a traveller who had shown him the alternative to despair and set him on the path to leadership of his group- a leadership earned and exercised well with maturity far removed from his behaviour during their game. The Doctor had given him a gift, and then sent him away. Karkat couldn't blame him as in fact he himself had told the Doctor to do exactly that. Their communication had taken place over Trollian, from Karkat's point of view just after their adventure and from the Doctor's point of view before they had ever met. Now, Karkat thought he had found a way to do something for the Doctor in return. No one, he believed, should be alone. No one should live without the hope of fulfilling their quadrants.  
  
\-- CURRENT carcinoGeneticist [CCG] RIGHT NOW opened a memo on TIMEY WIMEY BULLSHIT FACTORY --  
[CCG] OKAY THIS IS MY THEORY.  
[CCG] AT SOME POINT IN THE DISTANT PAST OR FUTURE SOME TIME LORDS SOMEWHERE WILL HAVE TO SEE THIS. I MEAN SOONER OR LATER IT'S GOT TO HAPPEN RIGHT?  
[CCG] SO IF ALL YOU ASSHOLES WOULD MIND SPEAKING UP.  
[CCG] PLEASE.  
[CCG] THERE'S THIS ASSHOLE CALLED THE DOCTOR WHO THINKS HE IS THE LAST OF YOU, AND I'M GOING TO PROVE HIM WRONG.  
[CCG] ALL THIS MOPING AROUND ALONE IS BULLSHIT.  
[CCG] I'LL BE HERE.  
[CCG] WAITING.  
[CCG] FUCKING COME ON THEN!  
 **FUTURE gestaeMagistus [FGM] responded to memo.  
[FGM] Hello.**  
[CCG] YOU'RE KIDDING? MY FUCKING RIDICULOUS IDEA ACTUALLY WORKED?  
 **[FGM] That's right!**  
[CCG] SO YOU'RE A TIME LORD TOO? LIKE THE DOCTOR?  
 **[FGM] I am! I even knew the Doctor, a long time ago.**  
[CCG] PERFECT! WHO ARE YOU ANYWAY?  
 **[FGM] Call me  
[FGM] Mr. Saxon.**  
  
Karkat couldn't believe his eyes at first, but it was true. His efforts to reach out across time had borne fruit. The Doctor was not the last, he would not have to be alone any more. Karkat began typing away rapidly, pounding every upper case letter with glee. Somewhere in time, beyond the borders of space as it was known to Alternian science, a TARDIS began to pulse and throb with power. Slender fingers skittered across obsidian keyplates and a console room echoed with delighted laughter- laughter which turned harsh-edged and ragged with madness. The time-rotor throbbed into life and a TARDIS vanished into the ether.  
  
Karkat gathered the others in the communal room, and tired to explain.  
  
“An alien?” Sollux was openly skeptical. “That'th a sthteaming pile of bullshit, KK.”  
“Oh, I don't know, maybe this is a good thing!” Feferi beamed, “we need all the help we can get!”  
Karkat smiled thinly at her, but Feferi would have cheered him on regardless with her sickening optimism.  
“Well best friend,” Gamzee grinned lazily, “I guess if you think it's a motherfuckin' good idea, it's all cool as tits with me.”  
“Uh,” Tavros looked around sheepishly, “this is kind of, well, it's scaring me a little? But I suppose, that's not really a thing that would surprise anyone so I won't go on about it.”  
Karkat groaned and slapped a hand on the metal table before him. “Look! This is something I need to do. There was this, well he was- it's not important! The Doctor helped me out. And I want a chance to pay him back, and Mister Saxon says that he can help us out of here, too.”  
“Oh yes, the Doctor. Let's talk about him.” None of the trolls said that.  
  
They looked around wildly, they had checked every inch of the laboratory, and their group was utterly alone. An alien stepped into the room as though he had been there all along, just waiting for the conversation to come around to something that interested him. He looked like a human, like one of the big ones who acted as lusii to John and the others. He had shot cropped blonde hair, and a wide, almost manic smile. He was wearing a deep black business suit with a red tie, and as he walked towards the group with his arms outstretched they all pulled back in surprise.  
“Hello,” he said, “I'm Mister Saxon. And I'm here to help you.”  
  
Equius stood up slowly, of all of them with the exception of only perhaps Gamzee he was able to look Mister Saxon in the eye from a similar height.  
“Perhaps you should explain yourself,” he began slowly.  
Saxon grinned and mimed a double-pistol two handed point at him, “you would be Equius then? I'm so pleased to meet you all. Come here! Come here and let me get a look at you, big boy!”  
Equius stiffened awkwardly as Saxon approached him and enveloped him in a back-slapping hug. What the others didn't see was the way that Saxon leaned in and whispered softly.  
“Don't worry, I won't tell them you're afraid you aren't strong enough.”  
Equius slowly brought his arms up and returned the hug with difficulty. He felt as though he was falling into a pit, and he didn't know why. This odd little alien, he could just crush the life out of him. But then he looked into Saxon's eyes, and he couldn't stop the words churning around his mind. Despite himself, Equius began to sweat.  
“Where did you come from? What's going on here, this is- fuck this!” Vriska stormed to her feet. Saxon winked at her.  
“Relax. It's no-one's fault if you get a bit of bad luck.”  
Vriska paused. Saxon was staring at her as he spoke.  
“Vriska? That's right, isn't it?” She nodded mutely, “your luck just changed, forever. Promise.”  
Vriska shook her head defiantly, but a faint blue blush was spreading across her cheeks.  
  
Saxon was a revelation. After a few minutes, no one even cared where he came from. He had a way of looking, and talking, that changed people's minds. He seemed to always know exactly where to push to get what he wanted. He produced a coin from behind Eridan's gill-ear as if by magic and the prince was enthralled. He told Nepeta she had the finest, sharpest claws he had ever seen, and his winning smile was reflected in her adoring eyes. Karkat was shocked. He had told Saxon about them all, of course, and had been happy to feed his new friend's curiosity but he had no idea that he had revealed so much. Looking back, he realised that he had just spilled his guts with the slightest prompting. Now, he felt a sinking sensation as he realised- this Time Lord knew all about them, and  they were all so glad to see him. By the end of the little meeting, it seemed only right that Mister Saxon was sitting at the head of the table right beside Karkat, who seemed only all the smaller beside him.  
  
Saxon showed them his machine. His TARDIS was very different to the slightly shabby looking blue box that the Doctor had travelled in. It was perfectly disguised as a thick load-supporting stone beam, but when Saxon pressed on a certain place on the surface a hidden door opened to reveal the copious space within. This TARDIS seemed to gleam where the Doctor's was dusty. Karkat remembered sharing a meal in a charming little kitchen with the Doctor and his companions, while Saxon showed them the grandiose and spectacularly ornamented room- practically a throne room- in which he took his meals. Where the Doctor favoured wood panelling and a slightly scuffed and weatherbeaten aesthetic Saxon was all gleaming metal and smooth lines in his architectural choices. The trolls were all suitably impressed by the technology that he showed them, and Saxon effortlessly integrated himself into their group. None of them had discussed it or taken a vote, yet oddly they all simply felt the rightness of his being there. All of them except Karkat.  
  
The day of the vote came. It was an idea Saxon had come up with, of course. He wanted only to help them. In order to help them, they had to help him in return. They had to do what he told them to. Saxon smiled warmly as he explained it to them, and shook their hands. Equius had taken to walking behind Saxon as he went on his rounds, he would stare silently, impassive behind his cracked shades, while Saxon explained things to the trolls one at a time. Saxon was in favour of freedom. Saxon wanted to introduce new ideas. Saxon intended on taking the trolls into a new and better future, together. In order to legitimise this bold agenda, Saxon had proposed a vote. If the trolls voted for him in a majority, then he would proceed as planned. If not, then he would simply take his leave and depart in peace. It was all so reasonable when he explained it to them, none of them really doubted that he would have the votes. All of them.  
  
And yet, Karkat wondered exactly what it was they were voting for. Certainly, Saxon seemed to mean them no harm, and yet it seemed to him that they were in a position of giving this unknown alien who had appeared out of nowhere the power to determine their fate simply because he asked nicely. Karkat remembered how it had been in the brief time he had known the Doctor. He had followed the Doctor, yes, but it was more like being taken by the hand and led into a new world of possibility by someone who wanted only to show him what they saw. Saxon was like riding on the rise of a wave in the ocean, impossible and powerful, they were simply carried along helplessly by his charisma.  
  
The next time the trolls met in the communal meeting area, they found themselves sat around the edges of a semicircle of tables pulled together, at the head of which Saxon sat alone and above them all. He had counted the votes, in front of them all. One had voted against, one abstention. Otherwise- he had them. He stood up and spread his arms wide, beaming.  
“Friends!”  
Equius applauded softly, and the others joined in with varying degrees of eagerness.  
“My friends, my new and greatest friends! I cannot explain to you how glad I am. Together, we are going to do things... Oh-ho-ho the things we will do!”  
“Yeah?” Sollux raised an eyebrow, “like what? We're thtuck on thith fucking meteor, it'th not like we have any rethourtheth.”  
Terezi looked blindly in his direction, and nodded. “Sol is right, what are we even planning?”  
“Simple!” Saxon snapped a finger, “I have been studying your logs, as you have been kind enough to show me. I see now where things went wrong but guess what? We have everything we need to put them right again!”  
“Like, fuckin',” Gamzee faltered, “like how, man?”  
Saxon slapped his hands down on the table before him with a resounding crash. When he became excited, often when he was talking, Karkat noticed his eyes took on a more feral, hungry cast.  
“We play the game again. Here. Properly, this time. With your experience, and my guidance, we will play it, win it, and remake everything. The universe that should have been, the universe you were cheated out of. We'll make it all happen.”  
Aradia had been following the conversation with a cold, robotic silence. She had voted for Saxon too along with the others, but only because she was okay with it if they all were.  
“How could we do that? It seems that we have already played the game and lost.”  
“That's where I come in,” Saxon hissed, “your game ended when there was a- well you call it a scratch. That burst of energy didn't just affect your game, it extended out into the universe itself. That energy ended your game, when it should have been the re-writing of the universe into your reward. The reward you earned!”  
“This we know,” said Aradia calmly, “the scratch occurred when we were about to complete our game, how does that help us?”  
“We create the conditions of a new scratch. We put things right.”  
The trolls all stared at him blankly.  
“How?” Said Sollux suspiciously.  
Saxon grinned wolfishly, he had glittering white teeth, “the game takes most of its form from the hardware it is played on. I happen to have with me a TARDIS, containing one of the most powerful temporal computing cores in the universe. A computer capable of expanding the matrices of time and space- we play the game on my TARDIS.”  
“Then make a new thcratch?”  
“Exactly. The energy of the scratch will rewrite the universe the game was played in- in this case, the medium of your failed game. We will transform it from a dead-end into the engine that will recreate the universe to our design,” he was ranting now, a vein stood out on his neck. Behind him Equius was lurking, and watching, and nodding his head, “a scratch within a game within a TARDIS within a medium- and that's only the beginning. What do you want? A world? Have a thousand! Have a billion worlds! How about a galaxy or two? Why not! Take it all, grab what you want! All you have to do is- reach out!”  
Karkat finally spoke, softly, “and what do you want?”  
Saxon shrugged, “a little treasure, a nice little corner to call my own? Why not! When the universe is yours, what does it matter to give me a little slice?”  
“Yeah, fuck that. You're forgetting, we don't have a copy of the game. We were lucky to get here with our fucking skins!”  
Saxon winked- he actually winked at Karkat, who took a breath sharply, “of course. That's why we're going to need to get one!”  
“How?”  
“We send out the base code. All we need is for someone in a valid universe to start playing the game, and it'll form itself into a full program. Then we just wait for it to come to us.”  
“And why would it come to us?”  
Saxon smiled slowly, letting it spread over his face. An old smile, like a weary friend returning from a long journey, “someone will bring it to us. Don't worry, he always comes.”


	5. Part Five

_**DAY FOUR** _

 

The door shook and splintered under the repeated heavy impacts of a shoulder, before exploding into the room on it's hinges. The modest suburban home had a fair sized entryway leading into a rather pleasant lounge that was currently in something of a state of disarray. The reason for this was evident at once, as several unpleasant looking midnight-black imps scurried into view. One of them was brandishing a toaster.  
  
Three of them converged on the door, chattering madly in their weird imp-tongue, their motions were shivering and jerky, they ran like characters in an old-fashioned film. The noise of the door being broken down attracted the attention of the owner and sole current occupier of the house. John Egbert raced down the staircase wielding a remarkably comedic hammer apparently composed of springs and abstract shapes. He was just in time to see John Watson take the kitchen toaster forcefully from one of the imps and batter the poor creature about the head with it. Behind him Holmes walked in with his hands still in his coat pockets and just stood there, staring around the room in total silence. John could almost squeal with relief to see actual adults in this bizarre nothingness that his house had been transported to. He leapt over the bannister rail and raced towards them, knocking an imp out of a window with a well-timed hammer blow almost casually.  
“Hi!” He yelled, “I'm John! Who are you? I don't believe it! I thought I was totally alone here! Hey is there anyone else? I'm looking for my dad-”  
Holmes held up a hand imperiously, “hush. John, I'm not good with children.” That was the extent of his instructions, he simply stalked off and began looking at things very careful. John looked so crestfallen that Watson coughed and got down on one knee, putting a hand on the boy's shoulder to get his attention.  
“Hello, my name is John too,” he said softly.  
“Your voice sounds funny.”  
“Yeah I suppose it would, I'm British.”  
“It's pretty cool! I mean, I've seen British people before, in films and things. Um, have you seen my dad?”  
Watson frowned and shook his head, “we have some questions, if that's all right? John?”  
  
Behind him Holmes was examining the mantelpiece closely. He stared at a slight ring of discolouration where something reasonably heavy had sat for some time, and then looked down toward the fireplace where that something had obviously fallen and spilled- ashes?.  
“We don't have time for this,” he sighed grumpily, “ask the boy about the game.”  
Watson gave him an exasperated look and used his best bedside manner calm voice. “John, I really do need to ask you some questions.”  
“Okay, but you have to help find my dad!”  
Watson glanced up over John's shoulder and caught Holmes' eye. The detective swept his eyes over the walls at ceiling level and glanced back at Watson, miming the words 'long gone.'  
“John, we- we'll do what we can, all right?”  
  
From outside there was a commotion and a high pitched buzzing sound, before the Doctor sprinted into the room, frantically pointing his screwdriver behind him.  
“Have you seen what's going on out there? It's fantastic!”  
“Doctor,” said Holmes caustically, “did you have anything helpful to add or were you just going to-”  
He was interrupted as a large green floating shape drifted into the room after the Doctor, it was polygonal and shaped like a fat blunted arrow. It kept trying to bump into the Doctor, and in return he was giving it liberal doses of the screwdriver which seemed to make it shudder and slow down alarmingly.  
“Oh my gosh!” John exclaimed and sat up, “Rose must be wondering what on earth is going on here! I better tell here you guys are here to help!” He paused, “you are here to help though, right?”  
The Doctor grinned widely, “exactly right!”  
  
After the introductions were made, the three men clustered around John's PDA while he hastily tapped out a message to Rose, explaining that there was nothing to worry about the new intruders. She curtly informed him that they had piled out of some kind of blue cube thing and she didn't trust them. Watson tried to explain that they were only passing through, Holmes remarked that the girl evidently had a good head on her shoulders, and the Doctor was busy running a piece of grist under his screwdriver, occasionally muttering to himself.  
“I take it then,” said Holmes, “that if your friend is playing the game with you, others might be playing as well?”  
“That's right!” John grinned, “Dave and Jade are supposed to be in the game too, though I haven't spoken to them in a little while.”  
The Doctor looked up from what he was doing sharply. “That's not good.”  
John ignored this and grinned at Holmes, “are you really a detective? That's so cool.”  
Holmes rolled his eyes, but Watson grinned and eyed him slyly. It was so cool, and Holmes knew it.  
“Consulting detective, yes.”  
“Do you solve crimes?”  
Holmes smiled thinly, “yes.”  
“Have you ever caught a murderer?”  
“Oh yes. In fact only in the last month we had a case involving a decapitated prosti-”  
Watson coughed sharply and elbowed Holmes in the ribs. The man had no ability to consider his audience before he said anything. Holmes glowered at him but went quiet.  
“We solve lots of things,” said Watson intently, “Sherlock is very good at that sort of thing.”  
John looked up at him, and a note of pleading entered his voice, “please, I have to find my dad, someone took him.”  
“Ridiculous,” said Holmes with a bored air, “your father was clearly taken by those things, if you want to find him then you will have to discover where they came from and I wouldn't recommend that.”  
  
It was too late, John was already gathering his things, such as they were, and making ready to go out and explore. The Doctor shook his head and took John's arm.  
“Wait, wait. We're not just going to let you wander off.”  
“I have to find my dad,” said John firmly. The Doctor gave Holmes and Watson a look. Holmes shrugged and shook his head, he had very clear opinions on what had happened to John's dad.  
“John,” said the Doctor, “we'll help you, but you have to tell me all about this game. How did you get hold of it? How did you even get in here?”  
“Hey that's right! How did you get into my game like this?”  
That took some explaining.  
  
The TARDIS had materialised outside of John's house just as the meteors began to fall. They could see the beginnings of Rose's work rearranging John's house already as she got used to the controls of Sburb.  
“How do you know this is the place?” Watson looked around, “it seems normal enough. No world ending here.”  
Holmes looked at the Doctor expectantly. The Doctor consulted his screwdriver for a moment.  
“This is it, the game code has activated, it's certain. If we're lucky, we can shut it off before anything happens.”  
“What exactly,” said Holmes scathingly, “are you expecting to happen?”  
At that point, John entered his medium and the entire house vanished.  
“Well,” said the Doctor conversationally, “I'm actually expecting a meteorite to hit this exact spot in a matter of seconds. Fire, burning, small earthquake, crater, that sort of thing really!”  
“Should, uh, should we sort of, go? Then?” Watson stammered.  
The Doctor nodded firmly, “I've got a track on the house, the TARDIS can follow it. Come on!”  
  
John made his way through the land- his land, apparently, while the strange denizens of the murky blue-black world skittered about nervously. Behind him, the Doctor was chatting merrily to Watson about the fascinating flora around them. He was explaining that the entire world had been given form by the template provided unwittingly by John when the game began. Behind them, Holmes chuckled under his breath, he was tapping away on his phone.  
“Holmes?” Watson looked over his shoulder.  
“Mm? Oh, just something that Rose said, she is quite amusing.”  
John grinned, “she's pretty great! Normally, I think she finds it a bit hard to get on with people though. Tell her I said hi!”  
Holmes snorted softly and got back to tapping on the PDA.  
“Doctor,” Watson said softly, “where are we even going?”  
“There's two ways to find out where a path is leading,” said the Doctor confidently, “and one of them is to walk down it.”  
“What's the other?”  
“Oh, you don't want to know about that way. That's the worst way of doing anything.”  
With this gnomic comment the Doctor fell silent and they pressed on, into the game.  
  
And years in the future, but not too many...  
  
“Phasers ready,” announced Worf, “targeting first wave.”  
“Hold fire to my order, Mister Worf,” Picard stood and frowned at the viewscreen. “We're here to find out what's happening. Open hailing frequencies.”  
The computer chirped in response as the _Enterprise_ threw out a broad spectrum greeting to the approaching horde. The response was as immediate as it was alien, and the computer began working on a lexical database for universal translation with efficient ease. The language of the invaders was rigidly logical and had a complex but highly ordered structure which the _Enterprise_ computer found simple enough to cope with.  
“This is Captain Jean-Luc Picard, of the USS _Enterprise_ ,” said the Captain sternly, “unknown fleet, please identify.”  
The screen was filled with static as the aliens responded, the computer gradually resolved the noise into an image stream, and the viewscreen was dominated by a sheer black field with a central motif.  An insignia reminiscent of a cruel face, made up of harshly angled polygons. The voice, when it came, was hissing and sibilant with malice.  
“Warship _Enterprise_ ,” it began, “you address the mighty Megatron, leader of the Decepticons.”  
“Well!” Began Picard, “perhaps we should begin by establishing, that the _Enterprise_ is not a-”  
“Silence!” Megatron barked harshly, “you will bow before the might of the Decepticons! I only speak to you know, that you will know the name of your destroyers. Now learn of our power.”  
“Vessels moving into an attack posture!” Worf stated, “weapons fire, incoming!”  
  
A wing of ten Decepticons had approached the _Enterprise_ to open the assault and opened fire, lashing at the ship with energy weapons the spiralled and flickered across the void like sparks toward the enormous vessel. The shields burst into life, illuminating an electric green shell around the ship as the weapons collided harmlessly. The ship shuddered as the energetic shell transmitted kinetic feedback through the ship's hull. Worf shook his head and adjusted a control.  
“Minimal damage sir, shields remain at ninety-seven percent.”  
“But there are a lot of them,” mused Picard.  
“Captain,” behind him the ship's counsellor had a slightly nonplussed expression. “The entity we have spoken to clearly possesses a sense of purpose and... anger... that suggests a living being, but I do not sense any biological life forms.”  
“Counsellor, what are you suggesting?”  
“Those creatures are not alive, at least not in the way we consider the term.”  
“Data?”  
At his position, Data frowned over his readouts. “The counsellor appears to be correct, captain. The movements of the enemy fleet are consistent with organic piloting, but sensors indicate no life forms present.”  
“Then what just shot at my ship?”  
“Unknown, sir, but I would surmise that we are dealing with a highly advanced artificial life-form capable of mimicking organic life.”  
“Machines, Data?”  
“Yes, sir. It is... fascinating.”  
Picard nodded to Worf, “assessment?”  
Worf glowered, “they attack while we attempt to make peaceful contact. They are without honour, and we should show them strength!”  
Picard turned back to the viewscreen, where another attack wing was joining the first to make a run on the _Enterprise_. “Agreed. You may open fire, Mister Worf, target drive systems only if possible.”  
  
The _Enterprise_ swept around as her impulse engines lit up, and she turned her great saucer section toward the approaching Decepticons. Phaser banks charged and fired, spearing two of the approaching vessels vividly and wiping them instantly from existence. The remaining fighters in the wing immediately saw the danger and wheeled madly to escape but it was too late- a volley of quantum torpedoes lit them up and they were gone.  
Picard gave Worf a look. “It turned out not to be possible. Sir.” He said stoically.  
  
Across the distance separating the Decepticon fleet from the _Enterprise_ the leader of the Decepticons conferred electronically with his lieutenants.  
“We now know the face or our enemy,” remarked Megatron, “they are potent indeed, but their weapons do not match the energy signature that we came here for.”  
“They annihilated the first attack wave!”  
“Yes, Starscream, and let them savour that small victory while they may. Small losses, worth sacrificing to learn our enemies' potence. Signal the fleet! Form the _Nemesis_!”  
  
Data reported in the change immediately. “Sir, the enemy is forming an unusually close formation.”  
“Assessment?”  
“I believe that the individual units are not as discrete as we first assumed, they appear to be joining together into a larger form.”  
Picard frowned thoughtfully, “they were just sending a shot across our bows, now comes the real attack.”  
  
The Decepticon fleet merged and transformed, bodies splitting and reforming in a swirling storm of metal. Forming at first a protective cocoon around their leaders, the Decepticons built up the ominous shape of a vessel that swung around towards the _Enterprise_. The flagship of Megatron, the _Nemesis_. Roughly tubular in shape, with a large ventral fin and diagonally projecting weapons nacelles that swept back from her nose, the _Nemesis_ had something of the shark about her. Without warning the tips of the nacelles lit with purple crackling energies as the Decepticons opened fire. This time the attack was no warning shot, deadly lines of force raked savagely over the shield bubble of the _Enterprise_ and sent a powerful shockwave through the ship, wounding the mighty vessel.  
  
Aboard the _Enterprise_ alert klaxons were blaring constantly as crewmen raced to stations and tended multiple fires and damage from the battle. Nobody noticed the Doctor as he casually wandered through the melee to the main cargo bay where the TARDIS stood waiting. He wandered merrily into the bay smiled warmly as an engineering ensign stepped in front of him.  
“Excuse me! Civilians should remain in quarters at all times during red alert!” He shouted over the din.  
“Oh, don't mind me,” said the Doctor, “I just thought I'd have a wander. Just ignore me, pretend I'm not even here I won't be a bother.”  
“It's not about the bother sir, the situation could be extremely dangerous, now please-!”  
The Doctor sighed, there was just no arguing with people sometimes. He pulled a small leather wallet from his breast pocket and held it up, letting the crewman see the apparently blank sheet of psychic paper within it.  
“I think you'll find my credentials are in order,” he said as the ensign went slack jawed in surprise before standing rigidly and fearfully to attention.  
“Aye, sir! I, I had no idea, you-” he stammered.  
“Quite all right,” said the Doctor smoothly, patting the shocked man on the chest, “what's your name?”  
“Crewman Quinson, sir!” The man was practically quivering, he was so far at attention.  
“Marvellous! Well I'm the Doctor, and I'm going to need you to do something very important for me.”  
“Of course sir!”  
“Just stand over there would you? That's right. Right over there.” The Doctor made a little waving motion, as ensign Quinson was politely but firmly shooed into a corner.  
  
Ensign Quinson watched as the odd man wandered into the blue box that had been brought aboard confidently. It was no larger then a supply container but he was in there for a few minutes, and when he returned he was trailing a long armful of cables that went into the box.  
“Uhm, sir?”  
“Quinson! Still there? You're doing a fabulous job, by the way.”  
“I couldn't help notice the cables sir,”  
“Oh-h-h yes, very important these.”  
“And you appear to be opening up an ODN relay port.”  
“Is that what it is? Learn a new thing every day.” The Doctor put down his screwdriver and grunted as he heaved a panel away from the wall.  
“Sir?”  
“Yes Quinson! More questions? Good to see a young man so curious about the world around him. I always say, you're only as clever as the last question you asked.” The Doctor paused and frowned, “or did I say you're only as stupid as the first question you asked...” he pondered this, and shook his head before diving back into the exposed circuitry with his screwdriver, tossing isolinear chips over his shoulder.  
“Sir! I really, ah, I really must ask you what you think you're doing sir!”  
The Doctor squinted at the end of a cable, and seated a pair of thick black plastic-rimmed glasses on his nose to look more closely. “Well, I might just be doing something very clever indeed.”  
“Are you going to tell me what?”  
“Are you going to stay in that corner?”  
“Well, you told me to.”  
“Mmm, think about that.”  
  
The _Enterprise_ shuddered again as another barrage from the Decepticon vessel raked across and through the shields. This time, a section of hull across the flank of the engineering hull was blasted open in a spray of scorched metal and venting atmosphere. In return, a spread of torpedoes blasted the side of the _Nemesis_ brutally, but the battle was becoming far more evenly matched.  
“Ventral shields failing across three decks,” shouted Worf, “casualties reported!”  
“Return fire,” ordered Picard, “all power to forward shields, adjust heading-”  
The _Enterprise_ surged forwards, phaser banks lighting up, as they struck the _Nemesis_. Within the Decepticon battleship, deep in the core of the vessel, a council of war was being held between the senior officers. The bridge itself bustled with mechanical life as Decepticons plugged themselves into various ports and orifices, recombining and reconstituting their bodies as needed. On a dais to the rear, Megatron lounged on a massive throne surrounded by informational displays.  
  
“They are powerful Megatron,” shrieked Starscream, “and we have no reserve forces! If we lose the ability to generate another space bridge-”  
“I am aware of that Starscream,” hissed Megatron darkly, “have you any further pearls of wisdom to bring us?”  
Standing across the dimly lit, alien angled bridge from Megatron, another of the large robotic forms inclined it's head.  
“I have, Megatron. When the battle began I had Soundwave deploy a series of spy drones to establish the enemy's weak points. If that pile of scrap has done as instructed, perhaps we can find an advantage to exploit.”  
“Your powers of delegation astound me still,” remarked Megatron sarcastically. “Soundwave?”  
Megatron was answered by a long, low murmuring of noise from the communications and espionage officer Soundwave, who then gestured mutely towards a holographic display which sprang into life and displayed a glowing blue model of the _Enterprise_.  
  
Megatron leaned forwards on his throne curiously as Soundwave manipulated controls silently and brought the display around to a damaged section of the _Enterprise_ hull.  
“What is it?” Demanded Starscream impatiently, “speak, fool!”  
“Starscream,” said Megatron quietly. That shut him up, no one knew better when to drop a losing strategy then Starscream.  
The display lit up with symbols and markings in the angular Decepticon script, and Megatron nodded. “Good. The strategy is sound, we will follow it.”  
Starscream made a mechanical coughing sound, “ah-”  
“Yes, Starscream, we. This enemy requires the personal attention of Megatron and I would not deny you the honour of fighting by my side.” Megatron sneered, “very close by my side.”  
  
And years in the past, but not too many...  
  
The Doctor saw it first and pointed it out, and they all ran together to the rather functional and ordinary looking white car that was nestled neatly in a spray of foliage, far beneath John's house. Holmes insisted on giving the car a good looking over before any of the others were allowed near it, though he wouldn't say why. Inside, John finally found the package he had been looking for since the beginning. It contained a server copy of the came, which the Doctor ran his screwdriver over thoughtfully with a low buzzing noise.  
  
“What now, Doctor?” John looked concerned.  
“Another copy of the game. One for you, one of your friends,” the Doctor mused, “but why did they go to you? What are the chances that four people who know one another would be sent four copies of a game, out of everyone it could have gone to?”  
“In other words whomever manufactured the discs didn't send them out randomly,” mused Holmes, “they had a purpose in who they selected. “  
“Maybe...” Watson began, but he trailed off. It was all too much, and he had nowhere to begin describing it. “I don't know. What is all this even for? I mean, rivers of oil? Blue plants? What's the point of it?”  
“What's the point of it?” The Doctor raised his eyebrows, “look around you. There's life here, creatures, plants, living beings! What's the point of life!”  
“To grow,” said Watson slowly, “to reproduce, to- to live?”  
“Fantastic! That's it exactly. The whole point of the game is to exist, that's all it wants to do.”  
“You talk about it as though it were a living organism,” Holmes remarked.  
“Why not? There's more things in heaven and earth! If life can be a mould at the bottom of the ocean, or a bacteria in deep space, why can't it be a game too?”  
John looked confused. “That's deep.”  
“Question is, why you John?” The Doctor frowned, “what is it about you?”  
Holmes knelt down and frowned, staring at John who squirmed uncomfortably. “Yes-s-s,” he said slowly, “what is it about you, why are you so special?”  
“Sherlock!” Watson chided.  
“There must be something,” Holmes continued, “some link. Some data that's missing, to make it all come together. What's special about this one little boy.”  
John was looking rather queasy under Holmes' hawk-like gaze. “Well, we're all special!”  
Holmes snorted derisively.  
“I mean it, Mister Holmes! All my friends are special. Dave is just the coolest! He can drop the sickest beats, and there's absolutely no one better then him even if I would never tell him that because he's kind of an asshole about it. And Jade is kinda weird, but she's so sweet and she sortof knows the future too, I think! And Rose, she's the smartest, I think she's the smartest person I ever met in all the world and she's still only a kid!” John puffed up defensively, “so don't say we're not special! My friends are special, so that's the link between us!”  
  
Holmes looked like he was about to retort, when the Doctor put a hand on his shoulder thoughtfully and Holmes looked up at him.  
“You're right John, you are special,” said the Doctor, “and your friends are too. So someone was looking for a special group of friends who would all play the game together-” he paused, the wheels clicking together in his mind, “how did they know you would play the game though?”  
“time travel would seem to be involved.” Holmes stood up, “they have a time machine.”  
The Doctor shook his head, “maybe. But why send the code?”  
“They wanted the game to be played,” said Holmes, “and what does playing the game produce?”  
“The game produces... itself,” said Watson quietly. “Whoever's doing this wants to create the game. But... I mean, you're holding it in your hand right there, aren't you?”  
The Doctor looked at the CD in his hand thoughtfully, “yeah. But the only reason this exists at all is because John and his friends play the game, and create the possibility for the game to exist in the first place.”  
Watson was aggrieved, “it just goes round and round, this is ridiculous! Things have a beginning, and, and a middle, and an end! That's how it works! You can't just put the end first before the beginning! That's a paradox!”  
The Doctor just grinned, “yeah. A great big timey-wimey paradox. And all to produce this little disc. Come on! It's time we found out who wants this so badly. John, it's time to say goodbye I'm afraid!”  
“But- wait, what? I mean, you can't just go and leave me here!”  
“Ah but we can't do anything else! You see, this disc proves it. Your playing the game created it, so if we don't let you get on with it, the paradox will never resolve itself. That's a bad thing, by the way.”  
“I need that disc though!”  
“Keep it,” the Doctor held up his screwdriver, “I have a copy now.”  
Watson looked uncomfortable about the idea of leaving John, “where are we going?”  
“Where else?” Said the Doctor, “straight to the end of the game.”  
“I thought you said the only way to find out what's down a path is leading is to walk down it?”  
“Yeah, that's one way, but there's a far more interesting one.”  
“What's that?”  
“Cheat!”


	6. Part Six

Saxon never simply walked into a room. He had ways and means. Sometimes, he would already be there waiting, lounging across a table or slouched in a chair. Sometimes he would storm into a room like an implacable force sweeping all before it. Then, he would often stand for a moment, waiting for all eyes to turn to him, waiting in the doorway until he was sure that he was the absolute centre of the universe before moving in. Whichever method he used, he would never stoop so low as to simply knock and enter.  
  
When Gamzee pulled himself free of the sopor of his recuperacoon, Saxon was perched on the end of the receptacle, squatting like a bird and looking around pensively. Gamzee rubbed a littl eof the slime from his face in surprise and mounting uneasiness as Saxon leapt down to the ground nimbly and handed him a towel.  
“Gamzee!” he said merrily as though it were the most normal thing imaginable to approach a sleeping troll unannounced, “there you are!”  
Gamzee was waist deep in sopor and towelling himself off with rigid, shivery motions as the sopor-haze dispersed. He was fighting back the symptoms of shock and a very natural instinct to rip the intruder to pieces. He mumbled something unintelligible.  
“I know,” smiled Saxon warmly, “I know! You weren't expecting a guest. I get that! I love that about you.”  
He reached out and cupped Gamzee's face in his hands, staring benignly into his eyes.  
“You're always open to new experiences. It's a wonderful quality.”  
“The fuck, man?” Gamzee murmured, “I...”  
  
It was no good, he couldn't stay mad. In fact, as Saxon stared intently at and through him he found it hard to feel anything at all except a mild sense of pleasant surprise that his very good friend Mister Saxon was there to explain everything. Gamzee felt his limbs become limp and lifeless, and he stared back into the so very human seeming eyes of Mister Saxon.  
  
“Gamzee,” he whispered.  
“Yeah,” replied Gamzee dreamily, “sup, man.”  
Saxon leant forwards a little, and used a finger to brush a little slime-slicked hair away from Gamzee's ear, “I had to ask you something, it's important.”  
“Sure, whatever.”  
“Remember when we were all voting? We agreed that I would look after everything.”  
“Yeah, that was,” Gamzee sighed, “that was just so cool, man.”  
“I know, it's what you wanted. I know you're my friend, you only want to help me.”  
“I wanna fuckin' help you, man.”  
“But here's the thing.” Saxon sighed, “there were two people who voted... one of them didn't vote for anything, and one of them voted against me.”  
“Oh yeah.”  
“It just gets to me, Gamzee. It gets. Me. Right here!” Saxon slapped his chest, and brought himself under control. “I like to know who my friends are Gamzee. I need to know it. That's why I was thinking, who isn't my friend here?”  
Gamzee just looked at him and shook his head slightly, not understanding. Saxon smiled warmly and went on in a low tone.  
“Here's the thing, Gam. Was it your best friend? I know he's a bit nervous around me- did he vote against me?”  
“What, Karkat?”  
“Sure.”  
“Nah man. He ain't like that. He was a bit freaked out an' shit, so I said why not just... not vote, yeah? Like, fuck it. Let everyone else figure it out.”  
“So Karkat was the abstention?”  
Gamzee shrugged.  
“That's great Gamzee. It's just perfect in fact. Thank you!”  
“Hey it's all good! You're my friend.”  
“That's right! I am! I bet you know who voted against me though, don't you.”  
“Naw man, no idea.”  
“Oh gosh,” said Saxon, snapping his fingers theatrically, “golly gosh! Now, what are we going to do. What are you and me going to do about that, huh?”  
“Fuck if I know,” Gamzee grinned, “hey you want a pie?”  
“No I do not want a pie Gamzee. Hey here's what I want. I want to find whoever- whoever it was who voted against me- I want to find them. And, you know, I think I want to kill them.”  
  
Saxon departed Gamzee's quarters and as he strode down the metal lined corridor outside Equius fell into step smoothly behind him.  
“Did the highblood assist you?” He asked, quietly.  
“I like him, he's funny.”  
“Yes,” said Equius vaguely, “I suppose.”  
“Something on your mind?” Saxon didn't lessen the pace of his walk, “talk with me, Equius.”  
“Vantas. He had to be the one, we all know it. He has never been comfortable with your ideas. He still feels that he should be our leader.”  
Saxon span suddenly and Equius nearly ran into him, drawing himself up to a halt fearfully. “Do you think I am not exquisitely aware of that most obvious and clear to everyone fact?” Saxon snarled, “what are you trying to say Equius, do you think I am a foolish man?”  
“I- I apologise, I-”  
“That's a lot of 'I's' Equius, for a man who hides his own.”  
“”I- what?”  
Saxon smiled and tapped a fingertip against the surface of Equius' cracked sunglasses, “I imagine you have lovely eyes. I'll look at them very closely one day, you'll see.”  
“I wish, uhm,” Equius drew in a deep shuddering breath that seemed to catch in his throat.  
“Yes?”  
“I wish the highblood thought about things the way you do, sometimes. It would be... right.”  
  
Saxon just shrugged and turned away, his mind was already elsewhere. Equius shook his head and jogged to catch up.  
“Mister Saxon, speak to Vantas. He has to be the one working against you.”  
“I thought I made it clear, I know he's involved already.”  
“Then why...?”  
“Because! Equius! Because! I don't care if Vantas is squirrelled away in his little room plotting and seething, that's ex-act-ly where I want him! But there were two votes, Equius. One against, and one abstention. That means there's someone else, someone not accounted for. I won't have that!”  
“But the clear majority of us-”  
“No!” Saxon was right in Equius' face, suddenly screaming, “it's not enough! Many is not enough, most is not enough! I want ALL!”  
Equius visibly shivered, “you would bring us to tyranny,”  
“And tell me, my Equius, what precisely would you do about that?”  
“I think... I would...”  
“You would kneel!”  
“This is very wrong, these things you are saying are scandalous,”  
“Then ask your good friend Mister Saxon to be quiet.”  
“I think that I will not,”  
“I know.”  
“I wish the highblood thought like you do.”  
“I know.”  
Saxon spoke to the trolls in turn. They liked him, in different ways, for different reasons. He was very good at being exactly the sort of person they hoped he would be, no matter who that would be. He would sit, and talk, and people would tell him things. Feferi chatted gaily about her cuttlefish and how she missed them, and Saxon commiserated and told her about planets where fish the size of cities floated lazily in eternal seas of space. She assured him that she was pleased that someone was taking charge of things now, it was a deeply personal relief to her.  
  
Nepeta pounced him and he laughed, they shared stories about the hunts they had been on, and he told her about when he had lived with cat people and learned their ways, and tasted hot blood splash over his lips. Sollux was delighted just to talk to someone who could keep up with him, and Saxon told him about the time he had scraped together an organic computer out of nutrient gels and wiring when he lived at the end of the universe. Eridan spoke to him about his lingering discomfort, living among so many land-dwellers who he had once been committed to destroying, and Mister Saxon nodded knowingly, and talked about the time he had stalked the halls of the Time Lords wearing the guise of a deadly assassin. Terezi sighed and revealed that she still pined for her dreams of one day joining the elite ranks of the legislacerators, a dream that was now consigned to dust. Saxon smiled and recalled the particular brand of justice he had received from the Daleks, and Terezi exploded with smiles and demanded to know more. Aradia spoke to him of her ambivalent feelings around her own death, and Saxon reminded her that death is only a doorway to new and renewed life. Tavros was nervous around him, but loosened up when Saxon showed an interest in the games that Tavros would play to calm himself. Tavros showed him the game of fiduspawn, and Saxon told him stories of the great game of Rassilon played out in the wild zones of Gallifrey.  
  
Kanaya showed him the gently pulsing matriorb which represented the last hope of her race, and confided that the burden of bearing the hopes of a species seemed enough to crush her to atoms at times. Saxon sighed and sat next to her, and told her that he knew exactly how it felt to be used that way. He reminisced about the Time War and the role he had played in it when the Time Lords had chosen him to be the commander and instrument of their war. Kanaya smiled thinly and touched his shoulder, and he asked her what was wrong. Kanaya confessed that her ridiculously annoying friend had been even more trying then usual recently, mocking her relentlessly for going along with the others and announcing that she wasn't even going to bother voting.  
“Ah, yes,” said Saxon, “Vriska.”  
  
This very quickly went too far. Far too far. Saxon had a way of talking, it was so hard to disagree with him. It was difficult to even remember that you wanted to disagree with him in the first place. When he brought them all together and announced that he had alarming news, the trolls were scared. When Equius emerged and dragged Vriska into the middle of the room roughly, the mood noticeably shifted. Her wrists were bound behind her and her face bore a livid blueish bruise from where she had been struck. She hissed and screamed, and Karkat surged to his feet but Saxon held up his hands and a silence descended on them.  
“I don't want to be here like this!” He announced, “I never wanted things to go this way. I wanted to be your friend! All of you! But someone just can't find it within themselves to accept my friendship! Do you even know how much that hurts me?”  
“Fuck you!” Shrieked Vriska, “I haven't even done anything!”  
“We all have to do our part,” Saxon smiled, and it seemed for just a second that his eyes lit on Karkat, “and you aren't.”  
“Fuck you!”  
Saxon nodded slowly, placing a hand over his heart, “it's all right, it is. I can take it.”  
“I'll kill you!”  
“Will you?” Saxon snapped, “if I gave you a chance right now, would you?”  
“I got all the chances! I'll rip your fucking head off!”  
“You all heard her!” Saxon raised his voice, “this can't go on! This has to be dealt with!”  
“How?” Terezi asked, her eyes were gleaming under her glasses.  
“Only one way,” said Saxon, “justice.”  
The others muttered among themselves in alarm, but the tide of opinion was not turning towards Vriska. Saxon just drank it all in. He loved working with crowds, They were a wholly different beast to the individual and in their way far more malleable.  
“Take her to an airlock,” he announced.  
  
And, by an entirely coincidental confluence, the Doctor was also under the impression that he was about to be led to the nearest airlock at any moment.  
“What the hell is going on in here? I'm reading an EPS tap into the main grid of the navigation system!”  
Mister LaForge stormed into the cargo bay just as the Doctor was finishing what he was doing. He stood up and put away his screwdriver, turning with a smile to the furious engineer.  
“Ah! I'm glad you're here!” He lied, “I was hoping you'd turn up!”  
LaForge shook his head, “I'm sorry, but am I missing something here? Crewman Quinson would you mind telling em what this man is doing?”  
The ensign stuttered furiously and pointed a shaking finger at the Doctor, “but- he said-”  
The Doctor put a calming hand on Quinson's shoulder, “it's all right I'll take it from here, I'm sure you have things to do.”  
Quinson just nodded frantically and practically sprinted away. LaForge watched him go incredulously.  
“I don't know who you are, but whatever you're doing stops right now. We're in a combat situation here, and you can either remove whatever the hell you just connected to the ship, or I'm doing it for you!”  
The Doctor held up the wallet containing his psychic paper again, “I think you'll find this is all authorised by the relevant authorities.”  
LaForge glanced at it and shrugged, “that's just a blank piece of paper,” he frowned behind his visor, “though it looks like there's some kind of neurogenic field coil incorporated into- hey what is that thing anyway? Who have you been showing it to?”  
The Doctor paled and put the wallet away hurriedly. “Ah! Well don't worry about that, it's just a trick of the lick I'm sure. Anyway, I'd love to chat but I'm about finished up here, so I think I'll just... go this way.”  
  
The ship suddenly lurched under an impact. Heavy weapons fire slashed into the belly of the _Enterprise_ as atmosphere vented into space before forcefields could bring the breach under control. On the bridge was a scene of organised chaos as people raced to control the situation and in the middle of it all Picard sat bolt upright and barked orders.  
“Report!”  
“Ventral shields have failed,” Data called out, “we cannot sustain this rate of fire.”  
“Change heading to three-one-four mark nine-zero, roll four-five to port and open fire with all dorsal phaser batteries.”  
  
The _Enterprise_ rolled and charged, and blasted the _Nemesis_ with spears of phaser fire that caused an explosion deep within the dark heart of the vessel. The two ships came close together when suddenly the _Nemesis_ underwent a change. On the bridge of the Decepticon warship, Megatron laughed.  
“Now Starscream!”  
“Megatron I beg of you!”  
“Give the order!”  
  
The _Nemesis_ seemed to buck and weave as the structure of the vessel collapsed almost instantly. As the _Enterprise_ turned the enemy craft split into hundreds upon hundreds of Decepticons who fell upon the Federation vessel. The shields held, flaring into life in a violent shower of green light, but around the ventral array where the damage was worst the shields failed and the aggressors got through.  
  
“Captain!” Data looked up from his display, “the enemy ship has disengaged and appears to have reverted to the constituent forms which we saw originally.”  
“Analysis?”  
“It is possible that we have damaged their ability to maintain coherency.”  
“Data, could we-”  
Picard was interrupted by Worf suddenly, “Captain we are being boarded! Sensors indicate hull breaches... multiple decks... where we were damaged by that last barrage, I cannot tell more.”  
Riker frowned at that, “that's why they concentrated their fire on our ventral shields, they were planning this.”  
“Agreed number one, take us to warp as soon as possible, we need to reduce the numbers of them that get aboard. Computer! Erect security fields on all bulkheads.”  
  
Suddenly the main viewscreen flickered and brightened, as the display switched to a view of one of the cargo holds, and was dominated by the smiling visage of the Doctor. He was speaking into the glowing tip of his screwdriver.  
“Captain! Good to see you. Is this thing on?”  
Picard was furious, “Doctor! What is the meaning of this?”  
“Good question! I thought I could be of some assistance. Sorry about this by the way, you might feel a little bump-”  
Behind the Doctor, LaForge spoke up. “Captain! I'm not sure what he's done exactly but there's some kind of relay into the ship's navigation- I've never seen anything like it!”  
“Mister LaForge, you are to remove all influence that this man might have over ship's systems we are currently under attack!”  
“I'm sorry sir, I don't even know where to start, I can't even describe what's going on here!”  
“Please, if we could all just stay calm, I have something to say,” the Doctor looked directly into the screen at Picard, “I've told you everything I could up until now Captain, but I'm afraid it's time for me to go. I have to find out what really happened here, and I thought to myself... we-e-e-ell, it'd just be rude to leave in the middle of a great big fight.”  
“Doctor, what exactly are you suggesting?”  
“Sit down, and hold onto something. I'm not exactly sure how well this is going to work.” The doctor reached down to adjust something off-screen, and there was a sudden high pitched squeal of tortured electronics.  
“Just what the hell are you doing to my ship Doctor!”  
“Something very clever indeed, if I can just get this thing to resonate correctly-”  
Data was working furiously at his controls, “helm unresponsive, sir, and there is a power overflow through the main navigational array.”  
  
The main deflector of the great ship was pulsating with energy and a low throbbing moan of power shuddered through the ship. The deflector dish lit like a vivid blue star as the relationship between the _Enterprise_ and the space-time around her became subject to a violent renegotiation.  
“Doctor!” Picard shouted, “whatever you're doing to my ship, stop it immediately!”  
The Doctor held up a hand for a moment, looking at something that was taking up his full attention, “I really think you should hang on now, this bit will be surprising.”  
“Sir,” Data said smoothly, “we are no longer able to scan anything outside the immediate area of the ship.”  
“What does that mean?”  
“There is no longer anything there, in any meaningful sense.”  
“Doctor!”  
The Doctor just grinned and gave Picard a wink, “the French have a perfect and appropriate phrase to describe this situation, Captain Picard.”  
“And what would that be?”  
 _“Allons-y!”_  
  
The _Enterprise_ moaned and the pulsating light from her main deflector reached a peak, the moaning took on a rhythmic insistent quality like the pulsing breath of a titan, and before the astonished gaze of the Decepticon horde the _Enterprise_ de-materialised.  
  
In another time and place entirely, everything was happening at once. A game session was drawing to a close in magnificent victory, as a group of alien players reached out for the Ultimate Prize, that which they had been fighting and dying for. At last it was to be theirs, when there was a burst of light as the universe was torn. At the point of the tearing, four human children brought their own game to a violent and sudden closure by unleashing the forces of the Scratch. A globe of coherent energy sufficient to bring about the apocalyptic reset of a universe was unleashed and, at the centre of it all, John stood watching the forces unfold. Behind him, unnoticed in the melange of forces ripping about a solitary blue box groaned and wheezed into existence. John turned and saw the Doctor emerge, followed shortly by Holmes.  
“This is it!” The Doctor shouted above the raging winds, “this is where it all led to!”  
“Doctor! What are you doing here?”  
“Why are you doing this John! You're causing the end of everything!”  
“We have to!” John called back to him, “we have a plan!”  
The Doctor looked at him incredulously and waved a frantic arm at the storm around them, “this isn't a plan! This is just... destruction!”  
Behind him, Holmes caught him about the waist and dragged him backwards, “Doctor! We have to go!”  
“I can't leave it like this!”  
“Doctor! Look around you! It's time... to go!”  
“This isn't over!” The Doctor yelled as Holmes and Watson both wrestled him back into the TARDIS, “I'm not finished with it yet!”  
  
The creature known as Jack Noir tore his way across reality through the event known as the Scratch and the trolls recoiled in horror as their Ultimate Prize became a nightmare of destruction. The vivid Scratch energies flickered and bled as they raced to their final sanctuary on a meteor far distant and, unseen and unknowably, the TARDIS forced it's way through as well and flung itself after them. In the control room of the TARDIS, the Doctor flew from one panel to the next adjusting switches and dials madly. The TARDIS shook and groaned with effort, throwing sparks and venting smoke all around them.  
“What's happening?” Watson yelled.  
“We're through!” The Doctor laughed, “we made it!”  
“Where are we now,” asked Holmes quietly.  
“I don't really know, but this has to be where the answers are.” The Doctor looked up at him with wild, mad eyes, “whoever sent that game program back in time caused all of this to happen, this has to be where it all started.”  
“And what will you do when you find them? Kill them?”  
The Doctor hesitated, and straightened up. “No. That's one thing I can never do, and I'd like you to remember it very carefully in that remarkable brain of yours.”  
“I see.” Holmes half-turned and looked at Watson, who met his gaze and inclined his head slightly.  
  
Karkat raced along the twisting corridors and stairwells of the meteor laboratory. He was screaming silently for breath and his limbs burned, his fingers were clenched into palm-ripping fists. He charged into his quarters and sobbed openly as he powered up the husktop and opened Trollian.  
“Come on,” he hissed, “be there, be there!” He tapped madly on the keyboard.  
  
Vriska screamed in fear and rage as she was manhandled into the tiny cubicle of an airlock and the door clanged shut with a permanent sounding click of a locking mechanism. The door had a tiny round porthole and she pressed her face up against it, begging and cajoling them to open it. Equius just stared at her and behind him, Saxon stood with his arms folded and one hand up against his chin, fingers stroking mockingly along the curve of his smile. He shook his head. Vriska screamed again and pounded on the reinforced glass with a fist but it was to no avail.  
“Come on, give me a break!” She yelled, he voice muffled through the glass.  
“Oh, don't be so negative,” said Saxon, leaning forwards slightly, “I'm told you have the power to influence fortune itself, so who knows?” He grinned, “maybe you'll get lucky out there.”  
Equius paused, his hand on the lock control. The others watched, muttering to each other. Vriska would have hoped that one of them might have spoken up for her, but in the end none of them did or even could. The power that Saxon had over them made it all too easy to just go along with his wishes. Saxon nodded at Equius, who slammed the lever home and opened the airlock to space.  
  
\-- carcinoGeneticist [CG] began trolling **legsEleven [LE]** \--  
CG: I KNOW IT'S BEEN A WHILE BUT I REALLY NEED YOU.  
CG: AND I KNOW WE MAYBE DIDN'T END THINGS QUITE SO WELL BUT THAT'S BESIDE THE POINT. IT IS NOWHERE NEAR THE POINT IN FACT, ALTHOUGH IT IS ABLE TO SEE THE POINT AND ADD WELL-MEANING CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM FROM THE VICINITY OF THE POINT- I ADMIT TO THAT.  
CG: NO YOU HAVE TO BE THERE COME ON.  
CG: NO NO NO NO NO YOU ARE NOT GONE YOU ARE THERE.  
CG: THEY ARE GOING TO KILL HER AND IT'S ALL MY FAULT. I BROUGHT HIM HERE.  
CG: I THOUGHT I WOULD BE DOING YOU A FUCKING FAVOUR. “OH HI,” I WOULD SAY, “GUESS WHAT YOUR CRIPPLING LONELINESS IS AT AN END BECAUSE FOR ONCE I HAVE ACHIEVED ONE HONESTLY AND PURELY GOOD AND LAUDABLE THING IN THIS WHOLE FUCKING HORRIBLE LIFE.”  
CG: AND YOU WOULD ASK WHAT AND I WOULD TELL YOU HOW I FOUND ANOTHER OF YOUR KIND.  
CG: BUT THEN HE JUST SORT OF TURNED UP HERE AND TOOK OVER EVERYTHING AND EVERYTHING WENT WRONG AND I TRIED TO TELL THEM BUT NO ONE LISTENED BECAUSE HEY WHY SHOULD THEY? I AM THE SHITTIEST LEADER EVER TO DROP LIKE THE LEAVINGS OF AN ERRANT FLAPBEAST SO LOVINGLY ON THE SHOE OF THE WORLD.  
CG: VRISKA IS GOING TO DIE AND IT WAS ALL BECAUSE OF ME, I BASICALLY AM RESPONSIBLE FOR KILLING HER. AND YOU'RE THE ONE LAST PERSON WHO I THOUGHT MAYBE COULD HELP AND I NOW REALISE THAT NOT DOING THIS SOONER WAS FUCKING STUPID BUT WHY WOULD I BREAK SUCH A LONG TERM HABIT NOW?  
CG: IT'S PRETTY MUCH ME KICKING HER OUT OF AN AIRLOCK RIGHT NOW.  
CG: DOCTOR! I NEED YOU!  
  
Karkat wiped his sleeve across his wet eyes and slammed a fist down on his thigh, snarling and crying with pain and impotent rage. Vriska was indeed going to die and it was indeed all his fault. Karkat had never been as close to Vriska as some, and to be sure she certainly deserved a horrible and painful death in the vacuum of space but she never deserved for it to happen because of a grubfuck asshole like him.  
  
 **LE: hi karkat!**  
  
Karkat looked up, the crimson tears running freely down his cheeks glistening hotly in the reflected light of the husktop that flickered whitely across his features. The airlock door slammed open with a sudden rush of air out into the blackness. Vriska's scream was ripped from her throat as she tumbled helplessly into space. She saw the yellow-white globe of the porthole receding from view and there silhouetted clearly a hand raised in a mocking salute, waving her goodbye. Her tears sprinkled away from her eyes like frozen crystals of regrets.  
  
CG: DOCTOR?!  
 **LE: the one and only!**  
CG: IT'S TOO LATE THOUGH. THEY'VE DONE IT BY NOW, SHE'S DEAD.  
 **LE: out of time?**  
CG: YES. IT'S ALL TOO LATE NOW.  
  
The trolls shifted nervously and looked from one to another. It had been terrible to see Vriska go, but yet somehow bearable when it was all of them together, working for justice. Working for him. Now things suddenly didn't seem as clear, not when he started laughing. Saxon just stood there, laughing. The terrible thing was that he was so genuine. It wasn't forced or theatrical, he was honestly and truly happy in that moment, pleased for himself, pleased in the world. He wiped a tear from his eye and let the laughter subside slowly. Behind him, Nepeta began to cry.  
  
 **LE: oh karkat, have I taught you nothing, hmm?**  
CG: WHAT DO YOU MEAN?  
 **LE: you're still thinking about things about seeing things from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint?**  
CG: FUCK, ARE YOU GETTING ALL TIMEY WIMEY NOW? WHAT ARE YOU DOING?  
 **LE: something very clever indeed.**  
  
Vriska curled up as she strained to breathe, she was dying and it was happening very quickly and it hurt. She had always imagined her own death, and thought about how glorious it would be. She never thought it would feel so cold. She looked out at her palm held out before her, blurry as her eyes began to freeze. She saw her hand illuminated by a soft warm glow for a moment that died out as instantly as it began.  
  
Then it was back again, the blue glow, and she realised that the light was coming from behind her. The glow died, only to reappear more strongly again as the TARDIS slowly materialised into view, the doors already flung wide open for her to drift into. Vriska shivered and realised that she could hear her own teeth chattering and she could feel air entering her lungs again, and around her a pair of strong arms slowly dragging her backwards into some kind of room. She looked down and saw that her saviour was wearing tweed.  
  
“Welcome aboard!” Said the Doctor, “Karkat sent for me.”


	7. Part Seven

_**DAY FIVE**_  
  
The Doctor stood in the TARDIS and looked out across a short distance of space, he was standing in the open doorway as the meteor languidly drifted away at a slow pace. Through a port hole in the airlock that Vriska had been pushed through he saw a blur of movement and then a face staring out at him. A face he had seen before time and time again, always with the same look of mad glee in the eyes, always with the same lines of cruel laughter etched around the mouth. He stared into the face of the Master and held out a hand, extending one finger to point at him.  
“I see you.”  
The Master grinned toothily and mouthed the words “I know.”  
The Doctor slammed the doors of the TARDIS closed and turned away from them. “Well! How's the patient?”  
  
Vriska lay on the floor of the TARDIS control room while the time-rotor throbbed lazily behind her. Looking up she saw a kindly face, a human face, staring down. He smiled and cupped her cheek.  
“Well, I mean, I don't know anything about these... uh, things, but I think she'll be all right?” Rory looked up and nodded, and the Doctor grinned and clapped his hands, leaping across to the console and already dancing his fingers over the controls.  
“Yes, that's good, all right is just perfect for now. I always say, I'll take all right any day. Right. We're going to have to have a little talk about what's been going on I think because something very, very bad is happening back there.”  
Another human passed by and Vriska looked up at her, she saw red human-hair flowing and where her head rested against Rory's chest she felt his breath rise suddenly.  
“I thought we couldn't go back Doctor,” Amy said, “wasn't it supposed to be destiny or something? We can't get involved in all the stuff Karkat has to do?”  
“Yes I said that. I thought that. But you see there's a problem now- someone else is getting involved and it's not good.”  
“How do you know that?”  
“Because it's never good when it's him.”  
“Who?”  
  
Mister Saxon turned from the airlock door and clapped his hands for attention, “Well it seems things have taken a little bit of a turn!”  
“Wait,” Kanaya stepped forwards, frowning, “what just happened? What was that, out there? I saw something. Who was that? Who are you really?”  
Saxon met her gaze coolly, staring deeply into her eyes, “I am the Master.”  
  
“The Master?” Rory snorted, “oh come on, who seriously goes around saying 'hi everyone, I'm the Master,' that's just ridiculous.”  
“Oh he goes by many names,” the Doctor pursed his lips thoughtfully, “but in the end he always ends up going back to that one.”  
  
“It was a silly name anyway. Saxon.” The Master snapped his fingers and Equius stood up strait, “a human name, for human times. But that's all behind us now.”  
“I don't like this,” Feferi stammered, “I don't like it! You hear me? This is wrong, all of this!”  
Suddenly the Master span and he was an inch from her face, towering over her and she shivered involuntary and shrank back.  
“And what will you do about it? What are any of you going to do? You had your chance! We all sat down and talked it over. We had a vote! Certain promises were made.” He turned around, looking at them in turn, shaking an admonishing finger, “and I always keep my promises.”  
  
“He's a Time Lord,” said the Doctor sadly.  
“Like you?” Amy asked softly, “I thought you were the last...”  
“So did I, for a long time. And I thought I had seen the last of him too, but...” the Doctor leaned his weight on the TARDIS console and for a moment he let the burdens of centuries hang his head before gritting his teeth and smiling back at Amy, “well. He has a habit of turning up again, time after time. And I have a habit of stopping him.”  
“Doctor? I've not seen you like this before, you're so intense,” she leaned close and put a hand over his.  
“The Master has always been,” the Doctor paused, “he's always been there, like a reflection in a mirror I just can't seem to get away from. Wherever I go, there he is.”  
“Stop this, I know you Doctor and you're already blaming yourself, aren't you?”  
“Amy,” he looked up at her sadly and bit his lip for a moment. He reached up and stroked a strand of hair from her cheek, “it is my fault. It really is, all of it.”  
  
The Master strode down the corridor to the main area of the laboratory, where they habitually all met. Behind him Equius kept pace easily, and the other trolls were milling about- some moving towards following him, some forming groups of their own.  
“Equius!” He snarled, “I have some preparations to make- and there is, ha, little time!”  
“What is going to happen?”  
The Master turned and clasped Equius' biceps, grinning madly at him, “what always happens when we meet. We'll try to kill each other. Sometimes we even succeed! Time after time, century after century, and we're still not finished killing each other yet, oh yes Equius! Still a little more killing to do!”  
“That's so...” Equius thought about it deeply for a moment and whispered, “noble.”  
The Master snapped his fingers and beckoned to the others. “Come!”  
  
The corridors wound and weaved their way down into the belly of the meteor, and the Master seemed to know exactly where he was going as Equius followed mutely. They passed rooms and galleries filled with exotic and terrifying devices of unknown functions. Then when the Master finally stopped they were before an enormous collection of pipes tubes and vessels that all seemed to collect and condense into a small and rather unimpressive looking console unit emblazoned with the symbology of the Game.  
“What is this?” Asked Equius.  
“You haven't been down this far before?”  
“No, I wasn't aware of this device. What is it?”  
“Where's young Vantas?” Asked the Master abruptly. The sudden change in subject caught Equius off guard. Equius looked behind him, and in the antechamber leading to the space the other trolls were clustered in a nervous bunch.  
“Uhm, he is is in his quarters as far as I know, I saw him running in that direction shortly before the conclusion of the... judgment on Vriska.”  
The Master seemed to give this a little thought, nodding slowly and examining his watch. “Good.”  
“Why does Vantas matter now?”  
“Didn't I tell you before? He is exactly where I want him, I was not making a joke.”  
  
The Master took a device from his pocket, to Equius it looked like nothing so much as a tiny baton with a glowing yellow tip, and as he directed it toward the console the device lit up in response immediately.  
  
“Please, what are you doing?” Equius shifted his weight from foot to foot, he was unsure what the machine would do but he doubted it was any good.  
“I've been hard at work you know. This is a genuine paradox machine- very difficult to create, very few reasons why you would even want to. The engineers behind this place really, really knew what they were doing! Do you know how rare it is to impress a Time Lord with paradox technology?”  
“I had no idea. But what will it do?”  
“It's designed to spread the Game code into the world that you should have had for yourself. If your game had been completed as it was supposed to be, this machine would deliver a partial copy of the game into your new world so that the cycle could all begin over again. We just need to borrow the code for ourselves to play our own game.”  
“It contains a game for us to play?”  
“Not yet. First a seed-code has to be sent out to be played. The completed game that results from the seed-code will create a finished game disc for us. The whole purpose of the game is just to create a new game for someone else to play. It's all very charitable.”  
“Will you send the seed-code then? Why do we wait?”  
“Because we don't have it. Your game never finished properly, no seed was generated. I've spent... hours... going over every inch of this machine and it is sterile.” He relished the word sterile.  
“What then will we do?”  
“The whole game is a paradox, it creates itself... and that means that unless we have a seed-code to send out the paradox will be broken, and the game is just not going to let that happen.”  
“What will happen then?”  
The Master turned and raised his arms, beckoning to all of the trolls to approach, “something!”  
  
The others looked around in confusion, shrugging and muttering softly. It seemed as though the Master had led them down there for nothing at all- until something happened.  
  
The room was swept up with a sudden breeze out of nowhere as a terrific groaning, grinding noise rose out of the ether. In the centre of the space there materialised an incongruous blue box, the blue lamp on top of it lining all of their silhouettes in silver light. The Master stood in his welcoming pose with a wide smile on his face as the doors were thrown open.  
“Doctor!”  
A man stepped out in front of the dumbstruck trolls, and leveled a British army pistol at the Master.  
“Please,” he said, “call me John.”  
The Master looked nonplussed. “You're not him,” he said almost plaintively.  
“Well nobody's perfect,” replied Watson.  
  
Sherlock was next to depart the TARDIS, followed by the Doctor, who caught the Master's eye immediately. He had never seen this incarnation of his ancient enemy, and yet they knew each other instantly as only Time Lords could.  
“Doctor,” said the Master in satisfaction.  
“You're dead,” said the Doctor, “I saw it. I saw you die, I was there! You're dead!”  
“I've been called worse!” Said the Master merrily, “who are your delightful friends?”  
“Sherlock Holmes, pleased to meet you,” said Sherlock, putting on a theatrical show of friendliness. He took in the obviously alien surroundings, the trolls, and the human-seeming man before them in a  glance. But he was not human- this person was like the Doctor was, in some way.  
“Why Doctor! You're keeping a better class of company these days. I like your new... pet.”  
“Easy now!” Watson raised his pistol, “man with a gun, remember? I'm not in any kind of a mood.”  
The Master clicked his teeth together sharply, “does your dog bite too or just bark?”  
“You did die,” the Doctor said almost forlornly, “you were there when it all happened...”  
“Oh come Doctor!” Snapped the Master, “are we really going to talk about the war when we have a whole new universe to create?”  
“Shoot him,” said Sherlock suddenly, “I don't know what he's planning but it's serious and he's ready for us, shoot him John!”  
  
Watson took aim and gritted his teeth, but the Doctor put a restraining hand on his and gently pushed the pistol down, shaking his head. Around them the trolls were gathering in a loose circle, and they were not looking entirely friendly to the humans and the Doctor.  
“Doctor?”  
“You can't shoot him,” said the Doctor flatly.  
“Well, I really think I can,”  
“No I mean, you actually can't. It can't happen, it can't be allowed to happen.”  
The Master smirked and nodded, “you feel it, don't you Doctor?”  
  
Terezi whispered to Kanaya, who shook her head in confusion. They looked around at the others. Gamzee was rocking on his heels gently, while Equius looked about ready to leap into combat. That he had not already was testament to the hold the Master was exerting.  
  
“A paradox!” Said the Master, “isn't it horrible? Like an ache in the back of your head that just won't stop!” He glared around at the trolls, at the humans. Only the Doctor knew what he was talking about because the Doctor could feel it too, “why are you all so dense? It's happening now, the paradox!”  
Watson risked a glance over his shoulder at the Doctor, who slowly took his sonic screwdriver from his coat, “Doctor?”  
“I've been a complete idiot,” said the Doctor quietly, “all this time I was trying to head off what was coming, and in the end I ran straight into a paradox trap.”  
“I don't understand,” said Watson.  
Holmes was frowning and staring at the Master.  
“He's the one who sent the code,” said Holmes, “he started all of this. Why.” It was a statement as much as a question.  
“Oh this is just perfect, the greatest consulting detective of his time, working on little me! Don't insult me with your pathetic guesswork, little human. I am as far beyond you as you are beyond your ape there,” the Master gestured at Watson, who bristled.  
“You created a paradox in time,” said Holmes slowly, studying the Master's face, “and the only way the paradox is possible- ah! Is if we are here, now, to make it all start over again.”  
“Very good Holmes,” said the Master with a look that was far less then pleasant, “now shut up, please.”  
“That's why we need to stop this now,” said Holmes, “turn around and walk away.”  
“I can't,” said the Doctor, “I can't leave an unresolved paradox, it would rip a hole into time, we'd doom the whole time-line.”  
“Doctor, I believe you have something for me. I just know you do.” The Master held out a hand, and the Doctor silently approached him and handed over his screwdriver.  
“Doctor!” Watson hissed.  
“Oh, don't be so upset,” the Master smirked, “he really had no choice. If he hadn't given me the completed game which, I imagine, is stored right here,” he winked and held up the screwdriver and the Doctor nodded, “then I could never have sent the game-seed in the first place. In the end it's all rather neat, I think!”  
  
The Master ran his own tool over the Doctor's screwdriver, watching the response carefully, and then turned to the machine and activated it, slapping his hand onto a large square button with an engraved Spirograph design. The machine thrummed into life, creating and containing the paradox of it's own creation. Across impossible distances of universes, a seed of code was generated and spat into the ether, it would somehow, impossibly, find a place to nestle and grow and propagate. The game inserted itself into an otherwise unremarkable work order, it was printed onto data discs and distributed, just so that a group of friends could start to play. The cycle was commenced.  
  
“I have the finished game code,” said the Master confidently, “I have all the time in the world, and a reward beyond imagining to collect, and I have you, Doctor. At good long last, it is all mine. The power, the limitless power of creation itself, and my most beloved enemy to spend it all on.”  
He strode up to the Doctor as the trolls circled in around their leader.  
  
“Tremble. Because this, Doctor, will be my day of wrath.”


	8. Part Eight

_**DAY SIX**_  
  
Watson opened his eyes slowly and sat up, twisting his torso with a click of protesting bones he sighed. There was no clear distinction between day and night in this place, but he had taken the chance to catch up on his sleep when it presented itself to him. He was used to making do with difficult sleeping conditions and in honesty the prison cell they shared wasn't as uncomfortable as some of the places he had been in the army.  
  
He heard the low sound of muted conversation and looked over to where the Doctor and Holmes were sat opposite each other on benches bolted to the stone walls. When he cleared his throat they looked over at him and Holmes raised a hand.  
“Ah, welcome back to the land of the living.”  
“Did you sleep?” Watson asked redundantly, he already knew the answer.  
“No,” said the Doctor.  
“Of course not,” said Holmes as though the very idea were incomprehensible.  
“Well you should,” grunted Watson, sitting upright on his own bench, “when you don't know what's coming you should grab all the rest that you can.”  
Holmes snorted derisively, “I think it was easy enough to see this coming. There's little point in confronting your enemy and then deciding to just give them whatever they want and let them lock you up.”  
  
This had evidently been a point of some discussion between them, and Watson rolled his eyes.  
“I have to say Doctor, I agree with Sherlock. If the Master is everything you say he is you should have just let me shoot him.” He self-consciously rubbed his side, the spot where his pistol would have been nestled.  
The Doctor glared at him, “I thought you took an oath to do no harm?”  
Watson held up a finger, “I also took an oath when I joined the army, and preventing harm means stopping the bad man sometimes.”  
“Not like that.” The Doctor said it with an air of finality. Holmes looked at him and shook his head, prompting the Doctor to continue, “look. Imagine...” he thought for a moment, “imagine if you went back to Earth and you were all alone. There was no one there at all, all the humans gone. There's trees, and rabbits, and... cats... and whatever, but you're the only human left. Then one day you find out that there's someone else out there. No matter what that person had done, could you really kill them? If it meant you'd be left the only one, forever?” The Doctor looked at Watson with pleading eyes, he needed someone to understand- anyone.  
“I don't think I can relate,” said Watson diplomatically.  
“We're the last Time Lords,” said the Doctor quietly, “after him there's just me. I thought he was dead already... I didn't think he could still regenerate.” He looked at Holmes pleadingly, “if you knew there was only one being like you in the whole universe, could you kill them?”  
  
Holmes thought back in his mind, in exquisite detail. He saw the diffuse glow of a swimming pool, water ripples reflecting on grimy tile walls. He stared down the barrel of a pistol at a laughing man who said, _“you've come the closest, but now you're in my way.”_  
“I wonder,” he mused. “I'm not sure that I could do it.” He glanced languidly over at the Doctor, coming out of his brief reverie.  
“Well.” Said Watson, slapping his knees and standing up with a grunt to stretch his aching limbs, “what now?”  
  
“Oh, that's easy,” the Doctor grinned, “we escape, of course!”  
“I presume you've determined a way out of this cell,” said Sherlock Holmes with a thin smile.  
“Six ways.”  
“Oh? I have seven.”  
  
As they got up the Doctor glanced at Watson and mimed, “he always like this?”  
Watson just shrugged and nodded.  
  
Elsewhere within the meteor, the paradox machine was taking its' final form. The Master had completed the transfer of information from the Doctor's sonic screwdriver, and the machine was humming and clicking with an almost gleeful malevolence. Equius, as always, stood nearby to him and watched silently as he always watched. The Master stroked loving fingers over the keyboards, entering various commands with delicate care. Abruptly the Master straightened up and said “Hello.”  
  
Behind them, Karkat walked into the paradox machine room, pausing to glance at the TARDIS which still stood, silent and imperturbable, a sealed box.  
“Master.”  
“Mmm, it feels good to have my proper title again!”  
“Why did you call me down here?”  
The Master swiveled and lounged back against the machine, looking Karkat up and down.  
“Vantas. I'm surprised you didn't come sooner actually. I expected you to have tried some, oh I don't know, last ditch attempt to stop me by now.”  
Karkat blinked and tried not to flinch, “I- wouldn't-”  
“Don't lie to me, Vantas! I can see lies. I can smell them! I can hear little lies scurrying about blindly and taste them when I'm hungry!”  
“What's this all about?”  
“I wanted to let you in on the good news!” The Master beamed widely, “I wanted you to be the very first to know!”  
“Know what,” Karkat asked cautiously. He didn't like the way Equius was smirking.  
“My dearest, darlingest Karkat. Congratulations! You made it, you really did!” The Master pranced towards him and gave him a mocking pat on the head, “you no longer matter.”  
“The fuck are you talking about?”  
“Do what you want! Give up, fight, compose elaborate hate-poetry, I no longer care! My plan has now reached the point where you no longer get a part. Nothing you do from this point on matters in the least, tiniest, most insignificant bit. Well done!”  
“Fuck you!”  
“Easy, tiger.”  
Karkat pointed a shaking finger at Equius, “and fuck you, traitor!”  
“Not traitor,” said Equius smoothly, “just loyal to something better.”  
“Well that didn't take fucking long at all, did it?”  
The Master interrupted. “Go home, Vantas. Crawl back to your bed, or whatever, and tell yourself it was all a dream.  You brought me here. You brought the Doctor, just like I knew you would. Now you're done. Go.”  
“Where is he? What have you done?”  
“Who?”  
“You know who.”  
“Oh, Karkat, you're so boring when you're trying to think for once. I told you, it's too late. I threw him in the restraint block or whatever you called it. And, before I forget to mention,” the Master smiled horribly, “about, oh, fifteen minutes ago my good friend Equius kindly shut off life support to that entire wing. What did you think? I'd let him live? I'm not stupid!”  
  
Karkat stared silently for a moment longer, before turning on his heel. He said nothing, because he didn't want to explode and risk everything. The Doctor had arrived, and that meant there had to be hope. He refused to believe otherwise, no matter how the Master's laughter echoed and reverberated after him as he ran. He stamped and raged and let his boots clang on the metal walkways down, anything to drown out the sound of laughter. He had done it all, from the start, it was him. That was why the Master had let him have such an extraordinary degree of freedom when every other aspect of his planning was so meticulous. All along, Karkat hadn't been free at all- just another cog whirring efficiently away in the machine.  
  
And, elsewhere...  
  
Tumbling through infinite space the TARDIS rolled and roared . At the console, the Doctor gave out a cry and slumped over. Amy ran to him immediately, followed by Rory who called out to him.  
“Doctor! What is it!”  
“Ah! Stay back!” The Doctor held out a hand and his human friends hesitated, “it's all right.”  
“Doctor you're kidding,” said Amy flatly, “just look at you, you look... sick! Do you even get sick? Is that a thing that happens with you? Oh my God, you shouldn't be like this!”  
“Amy-”  
“Um, all right, Rory- nurse him! Do nurse things!”  
“Amy-!”  
“I'm not really sure,” Rory stammered, “I mean I don't know how his biology even works, what if this is all normal?”  
“Look at him!”  
“Amy!”  
  
They went quiet and the Doctor straightened up slowly, mopping sweat from his brow.  
“It's passing now.”  
“What is?” Amy asked, concern painted across her eyes.  
“It's very hard to explain, but- I can feel my history, my own personal history, being re-written.”  
“What does that mean?” Asked Rory, “I mean I know we're traveling through time and everything, but I thought when something happened, it's happened and that's it? What do you mean re-written?”  
“It's uncommon,” said the Doctor, adjusting his bow-tie, “and it's also absolutely forbidden by Time Lord law, as a matter of fact. Interacting with one's own time-line is something that inevitably leads to,” he hesitated, “complications.”  
“So what do you need to do about it?”  
“Find out why.” He turned and stalked across the TARDIS control room to where, in a secluded corner, Vriska dozed fitfully sprawled across a couch. “And, find out what it has to do with this one, here. This all started when we came back here. Somehow, I've managed to cross paths with my own past self.”  
“Well, how can that happen without you knowing about it?” Amy interjected, “surely you'd remember if you met yourself? I mean, it's not every day you meet someone who thinks you're as smart as you do.”  
The Doctor grinned, “thanks! But no, I don't-” he frowned and paused, “do I remember? It's hazy. The memories are coming back slowly. No! They're forming! New memories, a new past, all re-organising itself in front of my eyes. Oh, oh Amy! Do you have any idea what that feels like? To see your own past shifting around under you, changing into something else?”  
“So how do you stop it?”  
The Doctor grimaced, “this isn't meant to happen in the first place. I told you, it's not normally allowed.”  
Rory snorted derisively, “forbidden? Against Time Lord law? How many times have you done it before then, Doctor?”  
The Doctor smiled sheepishly, “once or twice. And believe me, it's not something I would do on purpose!”  
  
Vriska stirred and opened her eyes, sitting up on the couch she had been laid on. It was slightly shabby, a little careworn and threadbare in places, but it was infinitely comfortable and she felt better rested then she had for some time. Looking around, she could barely believe her eyes. The control room of the TARDIS was like nothing she had seen before, every glance brought another eyeful of crazed wonderment to her. Angles that made no sense, ladders leading nowhere, pipework and steam valves from a thousand different vessels and eras converged and jostled for space in the various corners and crannies. Around the central control console she saw a group of aliens- humans by the looks of them- and the large ones who acted as lusii, not the more reasonably sized ones she was used to like her John.  
  
When she got unsteadily to her feet, they came down towards her warily. She looked from one to the next, and gave out a little hiss self-consciously, a reaction to being surrounded.  
“It's another troll, right?” Said Rory, “is it going to bite me?”  
“Well Rory, I think she might well do if you insist on referring to her as 'it' all the time, it's a little rude.”  
“Uh, sorry Doctor. Uhm. Hello?” Rory gave a sheepish little wave, “I'm Rory. Hi.”  
Vriska cleared her throat and hugged her arms around herself, “are... are you going to kill me?”  
“Kill you?” The Doctor interrupted, “we only just go finished saving your life! That would be an awful waste I would think! Whatever gave you that idea?”  
“I've not been having the best luck recently.”  
“Yes, I don't imagine that you have. Well I am the Doctor, and I'd very much like you to tell me all about it. Start at the beginning...”  
  
The man had a certain bearing to him. Even though to Vriska's eye he looked hopelessly unbalanced and weak, she couldn't help but feel that he was the one in control of the situation. Taking a deep breath, she started to tell the Doctor everything that had happened.  
  
Karkat crashed through a set of metal double doors that barely opened in time and practically collapsed down a set of unforgiving steel stairs to land awkwardly. He pulled himself to his feet and  staggered along the short length of corridor. Ahead of him he saw a tall figure stride towards him around the corner leading deeper into the block.  
“Doctor?” He croaked plaintively.  
“Yes,” said Watson, “I am.”  
“You're not him,”  
“Oh, you mean the other one. Why does this keep happening to me?”  
  
The Doctor and Holmes walked up as Watson crouched down to check Karkat over. The little troll was breathing harshly and clearly in a state of extreme distress but Watson couldn't think of much to do about that beyond attracting his attention and helping him calm down. Watson took hold of his arm carefully, helping him stay upright.  
“Try to relax, breathe. Watch me,” he said. Karkat caught his eye and followed his voice, slowly catching his breath.  
“Careful,” murmured the Doctor, “Alternian trolls are known for their temper, and they have quite nasty claws.”  
“Who are you?” Hissed Karkat.  
“Hello, I'm the Doctor. This is my friend John, and my other friend Sherlock,” the Doctor beamed amiably while Holmes just glowered behind him.  
“You're not him,” Karkat growled, “I met the Doctor and you're nothing like him!”  
“I'm pretty sure I am,” replied the Doctor, “I certainly was last time I checked.”  
“I remember the Doctor.”  
“I'm, I'm sorry have we met? I feel like we're getting off on the wrong foot.”  
“He's not lying,” said Holmes quietly but with steely authority, “he knows you Doctor.”  
“All right then, where did we meet?”  
Karkat swallowed and nodded at Watson, who let go of him. “You just turned up one day in the TARDIS.”  
The Doctor frowned, “who told you that word?”  
“You did.”  
  
The Doctor paled, and before Karkat could say anything else he held out a hand.  
“Don't say it! Don't say anything!”  
Watson turned, “what is it Doctor?”  
“He must have met me in my future! Listen to me, you might know things about me but you can't tell me! You have to make sure not to give me any future information, it can cause a lot of trouble!”  
“What kind of trouble,” asked Holmes quietly, and the Doctor turned.  
“Bad trouble, trust me on it.”  
“If he's met you, why does he say you don't look like yourself?” Asked Holmes.  
“It means... I regenerated. Time Lords live a long time, too long maybe, and we do it by living different lives. When the time comes, we regenerate into a new form, a new body. I think he must have met a different me.”  
Watson gasped, “how many of you are there?”  
“So far?” The Doctor laughed, “I'm the ninth!”  
“Blood-y hell,” breathed Watson.  
  
In the room of the paradox machine, which was fast becoming the nerve centre of the entire meteor, the Master had not stopped moving for a moment. Only Equius was there to hear him as he made terrible plans under his breath, plotting out his new universe in all it's glory. He heard stories of old Gallifrey and the new and greater Gallifrey to come, the race of Master Lords who would stand in judgment over time itself for eternity. Despite every fibre of his being telling him that he was in the presence of a truly evil creature he could not bear to tear himself away- not only because he feared, for the first time, his own destruction but because he could not look away from the glory of it all.  
“And,” said the Master, “there's no one left to stop me!”  
“Who was this Doctor,” said Equius, “you seem to be quite... fixated... on him.”  
“Oh the Doctor. The man who makes people better,” suddenly the Master span around and clutched Equius' face in his hands, “do you want to be a better man, Equius?”  
“I... I don't know what you...”  
“Shh-h-h-h,” the Master trailed fingertips across Equius' lips, “I think you're perfect just the way you are.”  
  
And, across a trans-infinite distance of space and time, the vortex of eternity parted to admit a massive shape.  
  
Across the bridge the alerts screamed and telltale lights flashed warnings. Picard was on his feet, alone among the bridge crew, and staggered over to the navigation console where Data sat rigidly, his fingers working over the controls with blistering speed.  
“Captain,” he announced, “we have entered a zone of space that is unlike anything known to Federation science. Ships sensors are unable to pinpoint our precise location or velocity.”  
“Give me something better then that Data!” Picard shouted.  
“We have left normal space-time, we are now occupying a hyperdimensional pocket of space and time that is relative but tangential to normal.”  
“How do we get out of it?”  
“Unknown sir,”  
Behind him, Worf shouted over the rising din, “Shields are at forty percent, we cannot sustain this!”  
At the far end of the bridge the turbolift opened and the Doctor himself stepped neatly out, and immediately went over to the science stations arranged behind the weapons station. He took out his screwdriver and ran it over a console with a high pitched squeal of electronics.  
“Doctor!” Shouted Picard.  
Riker was already on his feet, “Worf restrain that man!”  
As the burly Klingon moved on him the Doctor held up a hand, “one second! One second!”  
  
Suddenly everything went quiet. The vibrations ceased shaking the ship and several readouts returned to green at once. The Doctor just stood there grinning.  
  
“Now that's better! Not a bad little ship you have here, Captain. Little on the large size for my tastes, at leas ton the outside...”  
“Doctor, I expect you to explain yourself fully, and soon, or else I will have absolutely no compunction about throwing you in the brig to await trial for hijacking this ship!”  
  
The Doctor stepped forward and leaned on the bridge station overlooking the command position, suddenly taking a far more serious view. “You were never going to find what you were looking for the way you were going. I thought I'd take us to the source of the energy anomaly a little bit more directly. And you can thank me for getting us out of that battle later.”  
“Thank you,” said Picard gratingly, “now if you would be so good as to return this ship to where it was before you... interfered!”  
“Gladly! We're just taking, well, a little side-trip first is all. Look-”  
  
The Doctor pointed his screwdriver again and the main viewer activated, showing the vortex of time swirling threateningly around the ship. Picard had the queasy sensation that they were forever falling down a limitless tube of pure nothingness.  
“What the hell are we looking at,” said Riker incredulously.  
“Time,” said the Doctor, “if you could see every event in the universe all at once, all gathered together in a sort of great big timey-wimey thing, then it would basically look like that.”  
“Is that possible?” Riker looked up at him.  
“No, that's not even close, but it's a good image to hold in your mind while I sort out what's really going on.” The Doctor clapped his hands, “now then! The next bit will need a bit of careful driving!  So where's the steering wheel on this thing?”  
Picard indicated Data's station with a hand, “main helm and navigation. I'm afraid a Galaxy-class vessel is a little more complicated to steer then all that!”  
  
The Doctor nodded happily, “good good, marvelous. Now then, Mister Data, is it?”  
“Sir?”  
“Hold her steady as she goes and be ready to apply an axial tilt according to my precise instructions.”  
Data looked up at Picard, “sir?”  
“Do as he says, Data.”  
“Aye sir.”  
The Doctor stepped down, nodding in acknowledgment to Picard, and looked out at the time vortex. He seemed to be counting under his breath.  
“Data, this is going to need some very, very careful timing.”  
Data nodded, “my timing is digital, sir.”  
“Good man. Now everyone should probably hold onto something. Are we ready?”  
Picard took his position in the Captain's chair and looked around at his officers, then back at the Doctor.  
“Ready Doctor. As my forebears once said, _allons-y_!”  
The Doctor just grinned, “I like that, I'll remember it!”


End file.
